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Tonight the Noir Bar is In A Lonely Place ... join crime fiction author Kelli Stanley as she serves up a glass of bitters with one of Bogie’s greatest films.

Some rainy weather we’ve got ... the usual? Not tonight, Joe. Hit me with rye over ice. Easy on the ice. In fact—just hold it altogether. I got enough in my heart to last til closing …
What? No. The big L, Joe. Yeah. The big one. Thought I’d hooked me a winner this time. I shoulda known better—for a fact, Joe. For a fact.

For you lonely hearts dames and swains, the drink’s on the house. We’re serving up a love story, noir style, and you got it—no happy endings. Take two parts Prohibition gin, one part vodka, a dash of seltzer and fill the cup with bitters … you’re In a Lonely Place.

Based on the novel by Dorothy B. Hughes (author of 14 novels and an MWA Grand Master in 1978), In a Lonely Place (1950) is many a writer’s favorite film noir. And no wonder … it’s as much about writing, imagination, and the empty desolation of creative bankruptcy as it is about love, violence, (dis)trust, and Hollywood.

With a combination like that, what’s not to love? Directed by the sublime Nicholas Ray—visionary of Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and They Live By Night (1948), two of the alienation classics in which he specialized—In a Lonely Place sings a broken contralto of pain, relationship abuse, hope, and ultimately, the defeat of utter loneliness a self-imposed prison can bring.

In this case, the prison bars are a nasty violent streak—possibly murderous—in intellectually high-minded war veteran and once-successful writer, Dixon Steele. Humphrey Bogart turns in one of the best performances of his stellar career in this film. Bogie’s ability to convey integrity—to embody it in his very fiber—makes you want to not only believe that Dix is innocent (and I’m not spoiling anything, so don’t ask me), but to believe that he can’t quite be as violent and abusive as he seems.

What the movie does, in fact, is make the audience part of the cycle … we become enablers, co-producers and conspirators of Dix, because we chew our popcorn … and make excuses for him.

“Oh, Dix can’t be that bad. He was scarred by the war. He sent flowers to the funeral. He probably didn’t really beat up that woman … the man’s stressed out by writing deadlines!”
OK, maybe the last excuse only applies if you’ve been through a writing deadline, but still … we want to believe in Dix as much as the delectable Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame) does.

Laurel is one of Grahame’s best performances … a little jaded, a bit of a wounded animal, not sure if she should run away or go on the prowl for this saturnine writer who lives across the way. Mixing things up for Laurel is an uncredited turn by Ruth Gillette as the sinister masseuse Martha, who wants Laurel to a former lover, and reminds her:  “Remember, angel, in the beginning was the land. Motion pictures came later.”

Laurel, in fact, is literally gray, trapped in a no-man’s land of doubt and indecision where Dix is concerned. She knows she loves him. What she doesn’t know is whether he was guilty of the brutal strangulation of a young hatcheck girl who doubled as a reader in the Dream Factory.

Grahame’s performance here—the most subtle and nuanced of her many noir roles, from The Big Heat to Sudden Fear—makes her both an object of dreams and a dreamer herself. Only Grahame could so carefully portray fear, desire, and a white-hot sexiness that serves to melt the Steele in Dix.

Add Frank Lovejoy (The Hitch-Hiker; I Was a Communist for the FBI) as Dix’s old army buddy, now a cop, and scene-stealing character actors Art Smith as Steele’s agent and Robert Warwick as an old matinee idol turned rummy—and you’re in noir territory all the way around. You’ll find yourself rooting for Dix the writer to make a comeback … after all, in his words: “There’s no sacrifice too great for a chance at immortality.”

But above all, In A Lonely Place, as the title implies, is about love and the absence of love. About what love requires to grow, and what can kill it, stone cold dead. And you’ll find yourself remembering, while you throw back a Scotch on the rocks at your favorite neighborhood bar …
“I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.”

So live a little, and go watch In A Lonely Place … but don’t cry over your bitters.
That would be sloppy.

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