IN A LONELY PLACE

US, 1950, 84 minutes, Black and White.
Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy.
Directed by Nicholas Ray.

In a Lonely Place is dramatic melodrama of a type popular in the 40's and 50's. It is brief, concise, tells an interesting psychological melodrama with strong melodramatic characterisation.

Humphrey Bogart plays an unsympathetic hero - an interesting comment on the tough image he has frequently put across. Here the toughness is judged as a failure of genuine humanity; one feels sorry for the tough man who misses out on a happiness we know he needs and may never get - and it is all his own fault.
Not a masterpiece, but well-made and interesting.

1. How would you describe this film - thriller, drama, crime drama, psychological drama? Why?

2. What kind of personality was Dickson - was his aggressive manner just a front or was it something deeper?

3. The police thought it plausible that he had killed Mildred -knowing his temperament and his violent behaviour, do you think this was plausible?

4. Why did Laurel begin to love him? What kind of a woman was she?

5. Why did she believe in him?

6. What was the effect of the reckless drive after the beach picnic and Dickson's attack on the driver?

7. Why couldn't Laurel go through with the marriage? Did she handle the situation well?

8. Why couldn't she marry him after she heard the news of Mildred's murderer?

9. Whose fault was it that Dickson and Laurel didn't succeed?

10. How typical of modern man was Dickson? of the unreasonably aggressive personality?