Before we get to the review, and the spoilers, I want to recommend this movie. It's exciting, dark and well-paced with excellent performances from both leads.
Humphrey Bogart stars as a Hollywood screenwriter with a violent past who is wrongfully suspected of murdering a girl he picked up. Partly cleared by witness who saw her leave his place alone, As other users have commented, this seems to be a somewhat overlooked film in the Bogart canon, but although it's become one of my favourite films to star the old warhorse I can see why some people find it difficult to get along with.
First up, there's the character of Dix. Probably better than most of Hollywood's stars of the time, Bogart brings him to life. But Dix isn't a particularly sympathetic character - more of a tragic hero in the classical sense (although he survives to the end): a larger-than-life figure with a fundamental flaw. He's a talented writer but emotionally he's either too detached or too intense... and then there's his temper.
How deep this flaw runs is in many ways the theme of the movie, and as it progresses Dix becomes less and less likable - although never entirely - and like us, his lover Laurel (the excellent Gloria Grahame) gets to see him at his best and his very worst. By the end of the movie his emotional state is extremely vulnerable and thus very uncomfortable for the sympathetic viewer.
Secondly, there's the uneasy mix of realism and the 1950s. The cops question a key witness in front of the prime suspect. People have relationships, but not sex.
Often, too, there's some cognitive dissonance over the combination of messy, lifelike situation and the polished, stylized dialogue of the era's movies. Dialogue which would seem perfectly natural in a straightforward thriller of the era seems strange here because the plot is so atypical.
Third we have Dix's dark side winning out and the unhappy ending. If, rather than the quiet defeat which takes place, the cops had burst in and Dix had been guilty after all... well, it'd suck, but it would be more exciting (in a superficial way) and more acceptable both to '50s audiences and to and extent to modern audiences too.
But it's *not* exciting - in fact, it's the opposite. The last image of the film is Laurel (the most sympathetic character by a piece), tearful and heartbroken, watching Dix walk away into a bleak future...
That's some serious harshness for a '50s flick.
Finally, there's the whole "film noir" thing. People these days have a tendency to call and monochrome crime flick a film noir, but it ain't necessarily so.
In this case, the movie was and still is marketed as if it's in the crime genre - and yeah, sure, there's a murder - but it's not *about* the murder, or the investigation. It's basically a character drama, dealing with real-life issues in a way rarely attempted by Hollywood movies of the era.
Like some of Patricia Highsmith's best novels (Found in the Street being a fine example off the top of my head), this is a story about the effect of a murder on its characters' lives. The death itself, the investigation and even the solving of the case are entirely secondary to the impact these events have on the lives of the characters - which, as I understand it, isn't the textbook description of film noir.
This is an excellent movie which nonetheless has a certain awkwardness to modern eyes - it's dated well in some places and badly in others, but it's definitely worth a watch.
Humphrey Bogart stars as a Hollywood screenwriter with a violent past who is wrongfully suspected of murdering a girl he picked up. Partly cleared by witness who saw her leave his place alone, As other users have commented, this seems to be a somewhat overlooked film in the Bogart canon, but although it's become one of my favourite films to star the old warhorse I can see why some people find it difficult to get along with.
First up, there's the character of Dix. Probably better than most of Hollywood's stars of the time, Bogart brings him to life. But Dix isn't a particularly sympathetic character - more of a tragic hero in the classical sense (although he survives to the end): a larger-than-life figure with a fundamental flaw. He's a talented writer but emotionally he's either too detached or too intense... and then there's his temper.
How deep this flaw runs is in many ways the theme of the movie, and as it progresses Dix becomes less and less likable - although never entirely - and like us, his lover Laurel (the excellent Gloria Grahame) gets to see him at his best and his very worst. By the end of the movie his emotional state is extremely vulnerable and thus very uncomfortable for the sympathetic viewer.
Secondly, there's the uneasy mix of realism and the 1950s. The cops question a key witness in front of the prime suspect. People have relationships, but not sex.
Often, too, there's some cognitive dissonance over the combination of messy, lifelike situation and the polished, stylized dialogue of the era's movies. Dialogue which would seem perfectly natural in a straightforward thriller of the era seems strange here because the plot is so atypical.
Third we have Dix's dark side winning out and the unhappy ending. If, rather than the quiet defeat which takes place, the cops had burst in and Dix had been guilty after all... well, it'd suck, but it would be more exciting (in a superficial way) and more acceptable both to '50s audiences and to and extent to modern audiences too.
But it's *not* exciting - in fact, it's the opposite. The last image of the film is Laurel (the most sympathetic character by a piece), tearful and heartbroken, watching Dix walk away into a bleak future...
That's some serious harshness for a '50s flick.
Finally, there's the whole "film noir" thing. People these days have a tendency to call and monochrome crime flick a film noir, but it ain't necessarily so.
In this case, the movie was and still is marketed as if it's in the crime genre - and yeah, sure, there's a murder - but it's not *about* the murder, or the investigation. It's basically a character drama, dealing with real-life issues in a way rarely attempted by Hollywood movies of the era.
Like some of Patricia Highsmith's best novels (Found in the Street being a fine example off the top of my head), this is a story about the effect of a murder on its characters' lives. The death itself, the investigation and even the solving of the case are entirely secondary to the impact these events have on the lives of the characters - which, as I understand it, isn't the textbook description of film noir.
This is an excellent movie which nonetheless has a certain awkwardness to modern eyes - it's dated well in some places and badly in others, but it's definitely worth a watch.