In classic noir fashion, In a Lonely Place<\/em> (released 75 years ago this week) begins with a murder, placing its main character in the crosshairs of the police for a crime he claims he didn\u2019t commit. Yet it\u2019s not difficult to believe that Dix might be a murderer, even after his alluring neighbor Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame) provides him with a rock-solid alibi. This isn\u2019t a movie about an innocent man falling victim to a corrupt system \u2014 it\u2019s about a guilty man who\u2019s probably being targeted for the wrong crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Det. Brub Nicolai (Frank Lovejoy) may have served with Dix for three years during World War II, but it\u2019s still entirely reasonable for him to suspect Dix of killing na\u00efve hat-check girl Mildred Atkinson (Martha Stewart). Brub tells his supervisor Capt. Lochner (Carl Benton Reid) that Dix is essentially inscrutable, and Dix jokes that the only thing they can arrest him for is a lack of emotion. That sense of detachment could easily be read as sociopathy, and Dix doesn\u2019t seem particularly eager to correct the misconception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDix doesn\u2019t act like a normal person,\u201d Laurel tells Dix\u2019s longtime agent Mel Lippman (Art Smith) after she and Dix have begun an intense love affair. Although the specter of Mildred\u2019s murder hangs over the film, In a Lonely Place<\/em> isn\u2019t really a murder mystery \u2014 it\u2019s a doomed romance with suspicion as the barrier between the two lovers. Laurel is drawn to Dix, as many women apparently are, and for a while it\u2019s easy for both her and the audience to ignore the obvious red flags, to see the brooding and tortured Dix as someone who\u2019s simply been misunderstood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But exonerating Dix of Mildred\u2019s murder doesn\u2019t exonerate him of beating his past lovers, one of whom ended up with a broken nose. He\u2019s still controlling and emotionally manipulative, not only to Laurel but also to Mel, whose description of their decades-long working relationship sounds like an abuse victim making excuses for repeatedly forgiving a dangerous partner. The honeymoon period of the romance between Dix and Laurel lasts only until she makes the slightest deviation from what he needs from her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That makes In a Lonely Place<\/em> sound brutal and bleak, which it is, but it\u2019s also sly and witty, like one of the hit screenplays that Dix churned out before the war. Part of the reason that Dix is so calm about being accused of murder is that he\u2019s seen this scenario play out countless times, in scripts that he himself has written, and being in the middle of it sparks some inspiration in him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe solve every murder in less than two hours,\u201d he boasts to Brub, which is both self-aggrandizing and self-deprecating, a snide dismissal of Hollywood\u2019s approach to telling crime stories. Dix scoffs at the idea of being a celebrity, but he still laps up attention from kids outside a restaurant who ask for his autograph. At dinner with Brub and Brub\u2019s earnest new wife Sylvia (Jeff Donnell), Dix eagerly recounts his vision of how the murder went down, as Ray shines a spotlight on his increasingly maniacal face. Is he getting worked up over reliving a horrible act, or is he just rediscovering his creative passion?<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Dix, there may not be much of a difference. Once he begins his affair with Laurel, his writer\u2019s block falls away, and Mel is quick to credit Laurel as Dix\u2019s new muse. But proximity to a lurid murder investigation may be just as invigorating for Dix\u2019s \u201cartistic temperament,\u201d as he calls it, and the dead woman isn\u2019t going to let him down the way Laurel eventually does. He can have full control over someone who isn\u2019t able to contradict him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bogart slowly hints at those cracks in Dix\u2019s outward persona of seedy indifference, giving one of his best and most complex performances. Grahame matches him as a woman who initially appears to be a femme fatale, only to be unveiled as a genuine romantic, whose growing fear of Dix breaks her heart. She wants to be the person who can save him, but he\u2019s beyond saving even before the movie begins.Ray structures In a Lonely Place<\/em> like a thriller, but he denies the audience the definitive resolution they might expect from a crime story. Whether or not the culprit is caught or punished is a secondary concern. Everyone in the movie is already in a personal hell they can never escape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “In a Lonely Place” is streaming on Tubi<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/in-a-lonely-place-still-1024x756.webp\")
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