The chumminess between the suspect, his girlfriend, the detective on the case and his wife stretches credibility. Without the stars and the great direction this would have made a two-bit piece of pulp fiction. The violent reputation of the hero and the fear those around him feel is an unusual premise.

The review contains some very light spoilers:After watching this Bogey movie I am in various ways shocked! First of all I am shocked I never saw this picture before. Second I am shocked of Bogart's performance. This was tremendous! On the one hand so dark, deeply self-destructive and desperate, the mind of a writer oscillating between the fascination of the violence, which he puts in his screenplays and the film noir generic heavy, but belated regret - on the other hand so gentle swaying and charming, causing an extraordinary desire in us to be accepted by our environment, to be accepted by him. Bogart's face does the rest. After all he remains in the people's head as one of the untouchables, whom about nowadays only few living human beings can tell us. Third I am shocked of the dramaturgical brilliance of this film. The vehicle to generate tension through leaving the audience in the unknown of whether their favorite character is a murderer or not finds perfection here. Nicholas Ray proceeds with us to a roller coaster drive of hope, anger, fear and satisfaction. Even if this is a pre-Strassberg movie all the actors do a very good job. Jeez they even move pretty much around and interact with the other cast members instead of staying at one designated spot. Especially Bogart and Gloria Grahame perform together very intensively. Laurel Gray seems to be so afraid of Dixie Steele at some point I was concerned about, if all this wasn't just acting on the set. At last we also can find some obvious, but really cool meta-thoughts on theater and the Hollywood star- and production system at that time. Or you just smile at the scene, where Nicholas Ray tries to convince the audience through the actors and explicit dialogue that this particular one is the perfect love scene. Well hats off for "In a Lonely Place"! Watch it, you won't regret it.

Ostensibly a story about PTSD before it had that clinical name: an otherwise decent, high-functioning, articulate guy explodes at the drop of a fedora. Scrapes and scuffles -- forgiven and/or passed off as typical post-WWII tough stand-up guy behavior, until the police identify him as the last person to have seen a murder victim alive.For me personally, Bogart as mega-star was a given since I was a tyke watching him on TV, to the point that I find myself not taking him in fully; but his performance here is a revelation: no risk goes unrisked as the man unhinges one hinge at a time. Nick Ray creates a universe where everything and everybody is slightly off, where negative capability -- the promise of very bad things -- is possible at every turn. Bogart the idol is subsumed by Dix Steele, trouble man. In the early scenes there's lots of puerile dialogue wherein that absurdly phallic name is bandied about, to the point of giddiness. This along with slightly more erudite comedy serves to disarm the viewer as we're drawn deeper into the serious subject matter. Like much film noir, it's a comedy about tragedy.The gifted, always-vulnerable Gloria Graham (bless her!) loves the ruffian and brings out his sweetness. Ray's direction (they were in the midst of a tumultuous marriage off-screen) keeps her character smart and strong -- struggling with loving a man she also fears, not afraid to confront her own masochistic tendencies -- peeling back the layers, peeling back the layers . . .Like Ray's 'Born to Be Bad' also released in 1950, 'In a Lonely Place' is so different from other films of its time it appears to be made with different chemicals. Ray does the unexpected with familiar faces and familiar genres, and employs audacious rhythms -- lingering too long here, too briefly there. Both films feel beautifully modern for all that.

Dixon Steele is a Hollywood screenwriter in career difficulty, going to a nightclub to see his longtime agent, who tries to help Steele's career by having a trashy novel adapted to the screen. Steele agrees, but in the process gets into two violent confrontations at the nightclub. Despite this, a hat check girl at the club who has read the novel, which Steele didn't want to read, agrees to visit Steele at his apartment to describe what was in this novel, despite the fact that she would break a date with her boyfriend as a result. She does so and Steele pays her, but after she has left, she is later murdered.New neighbor Laurel Gray and Steele are called to the police station and questioned, and upon their meeting, develop a romance. Trouble is, Steele has a long record of violent behavior, and Steele alternately acts kind and generously and then threatening towards Gray, making her question her relationship with him. Continuing such behavior makes everyone else, including the police, more and more fearful of Steele. Who is he and what has he done? Great performances from all cast members, great noir atmosphere, but ultimately this is not a pleasant story. The ending in fact is a blessing in disguise.