In A Lonely Place (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] [1950]

One of the true classics of the noir psychological thriller, In a Lonely Place is one of Humphrey Bogart's finest performances. He is almost unbearably intense as Dixon Steele, a screenwriter with high standards and a hair trigger temper who finds himself under suspicion when Mildred, a hat-check girl he knows, is found murdered. Immediately he gets an alibi from a neighbour, Laurel, and equally quickly, he recognises that this is a woman who meets his standards: The question is, as suspicion of his involvement in Mildred's death continues, can he make himself meet hers. This is a wonderful study in trust and suspicion and the limits of love; Bogart's performance is impressive simply because he is prepared to go well over the limits of our sympathy in the name of emotional truth. The scene where he explains imaginatively to a cop and his wife how the murder might have happened is a spine-chilling, creepy portrait of amoral artistic brilliance. Gloria Grahame is equally fine as the woman who lets herself love him, for a while.