Starlight Classics Night! When Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart in a revelatory, vulnerable performance), a gifted but washed-up screenwriter with a hair-trigger temper, becomes the prime suspect in a brutal Tinseltown murder, the only person who can supply an alibi for him is Laurel (Gloria Grahame), a seductive neighbor with her own troubled past. Certain her new love interest is innocent, Laurel stands by Dixon, but as the police continue pressing him, Dixon begins to act increasingly erratically. The blossoming love affair suffers as Laurel begins to wonder if Dixon really might be a killer.
The emotionally charged IN A LONELY PLACE, freely adapted from the Dorothy B. Hughes thriller, is a brilliant, turbulent mix of suspenseful noir and devastating melodrama, fueled by powerhouse performances. An uncompromising tale of two people desperate to love yet struggling with their demons and each other, IN A LONELY PLACE is considered one of the greatest films of the 1950s, and a benchmark in the career of the classic Hollywood auteur Nicholas Ray.
NR, 91 min.
"A beautiful yet devastating piece of cinema that operates as a bleak film noir, a compelling murder-mystery, a scathing critique of Hollywood, and a character study of penetrating depth." – Creative Loafing
"The genre trappings of this noir masterpiece don't matter a whit. There's a murder and a mystery, but whodunnit? is just the punch line to the gut." – Time Out
"IN A LONELY PLACE isn't so much a straightforward thriller as it is a poignant psychological study of a person and a milieu, veiled as an atmospheric noir." – Hyperallergic
*Summary borrowed from Criterion Collection