The cinematographer, Burnett Guffey, ASC, had been an outstanding second cameraman for 20 years, working anonymously on such pictures as John Ford's The Iron Horse (1924) and The Informer (1934), and Alfred Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent (1940). After filming Cover Girl (1944) at Columbia, he was designated a director of photography, and for three years did superior work for the studio's "B" program. His expertise with mystery lighting on Soul of a Monster (1944), I Love a Mystery and My Name is Julia Ross (both 1945), Night Editor and So Dark the Night (both 1946) elevated him into the "A" category. Even then his most eye-catching work in 1947 and '48 was for moody films such as Framed, Johnny O'Clock and The Sign of the Ram. He did fine work for Santana's Knock on Any Door, and returned for In a Lonely Place. Ahead of him lay many top-of-the-line pictures, including his Academy-Award winners, From Here to Eternity (1953) and Bonnie and Clyde (1967).
Anthiel, who titled his autobiography The Bad Boy of Music, was a student of Ernst Bloch. His compositions include six symphonies, an opera, a piano concerto, several quartets, piano and violin sonatas, several ballet scores, and numerous smaller works. He had written a half-dozen movie scores, including a fine rhapsody of cowboy themes for C.B. DeMille's The Plainsman (1937) and the ballet music for Spectre of the Rose (1946). He was a colorful Hollywood character who, in his spare time, was a practicing psychoanalyst.
In its basic narrative outline, In a Lonely Place is quite uncomplicated; the film's complexities lie in its characterizations and dialogue. Following a nightclub brawl, Dixon Steele (Bogart), a mercurial screenwriter whose renown has faded since his return from combat in World War II, brings hat check girl Mildred Atkinson (Martha Stewart) to his home to tell him the story of a terrible popular novel he has been asked to adapt. His neighbor in a patio apartment, unsuccessful actress Laurel Grey (Grahame), sees the girl leave, but the next morning, Mildred's body is found in Benedict Canyon. Investigators determine that she'd been thrown from a moving car after having her throat crushed in the grip of a man's arm.
Laurel is able to furnish an alibi for Dix. Police Captain Lochner (Carl Benton Reid) is convinced of Dix's guilt, but Detective Brub Nicolai (Frank Lovejoy), Dix's war buddy, thinks otherwise. Dix and Laurel fall in love, and she begins typing his screenplay. Their idyllic relationship begins to crumble as she experiences his violent temper. She soon realizes that he is capable of murder, and her fears are amplified when she learns that Detective Nicolai's wife (Jeff Donnell) is afraid of Steele. When Laurel attempts to run away the night before they are to be married, Dix begins strangling her. He is interrupted by the telephone; it is Nicolai, notifying him that Mildred's murderer has confessed. Dix, knowing he has lost Laurel, walks out of her life. (In the original version of the film, Laurel was killed, but this scene was reshot.)
Bogart's performance is at least equal to his work in more popular films such as The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. His Dixon Steele is arrogant, caustic, bitter and aggressive. No other actor could project rage and the potential for violence more convincingly than Bogart. Even his love scenes have a threatening quality as his hands caress the face and neck of his sweetheart. His sense of humor is dark: "I could never throw a lovely body from a moving car it would offend my artistic sense." These qualities are made more real by the equally well-played moments of tenderness with Grahame, as well as scenes illustrating the character's fondness for his agent, Mel, and solicitous concern for Charlie Waterman, who is shunned by everyone else.
There is a strong, relentless buildup to the idea that Steele is capable of murder. The picture's opening optical titles show his rather ferocious eyes reflected in the rear-view mirror of his car as it drives down night-lit streets. At a traffic light, a convertible pulls up alongside, revealing a glamorous blonde actress riding with an ugly man. A former girlfriend, she speaks to Dix, whereupon the man snarls at Dix to leave his wife alone. Dix tells the blonde that she shouldn't have married the fat slob no matter how much money he has. The man tells him to pull over to the curb. Steele leaps furiously into the street and barks "Why not right here?" The man speeds away. (The scene offers a moment of genuine Hollywood melancholia: the unbilled bit-actress is June Vincent, who had been the acclaimed star of Universal's Black Angel just four years earlier.)
Steele soon arrives at a nightclub where he calls a famous director a popcorn salesman and beats up an obnoxious second-generation studio exec who has insulted Waterman. For a while we are allowed to see the better side of Steele, but his dark self emerges again when, at a night beach party with the Nicolais, he gleefully describes how Mildred's murder must have happened. Then, upon learning he is still a suspect, he takes Laurel on a terrifying nocturnal ride over Mulholland Drive that culminates in a fender-bender with a college boy. Steele beats the youth unconscious at roadside, but Laurel intervenes when Dixon picks up a large rock. Eventually, he angrily strikes the worshipful Mel, breaking his glasses and cutting his face, and ultimately comes close to choking Laurel to death.
Lauren Bacall undoubtedly would have been a memorable Laurel, but Grahame also proved an excellent foil for Bogart, with her coolness standing in fine dramatic contrast to his nervous energy. Grahame was actually a more realistic, down-to-earth performer than the glamorous Bacall, a definite advantage in selling a hard-edged Hollywood story. She reminds one of Bacall when she dodges Dix's kiss after telling him she that she likes his face, remarking, "I said I liked it. I didn't say I wanted to kiss it."
There is sturdy support from Lovejoy and Jeff Donnell, who plays his frightened wife. Both continued to do well in movies and even better on television. Carl Benton Reid (without his trademark mustache) is convincing as a relentless nemesis. In some tense scenes with Grahame, Reid's close-ups are lit to give him an almost satanic appearance, with eyes and lower face veiled in deep shadows.
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