In a Lonely Place is one of two queer films – the other being Rebel Without a Cause – that gay director Nicholas Ray crafted in the first half of the 1950s, and both films bear the unmistakable imprint of a queer sensibility. Each uses the noir framework to probe the social codes and moral pressures that hem in their characters, forcing them into choices shaped more by rigid expectations than by desire. Ray’s cinema in this period becomes a study in how people contort themselves to survive—emotionally, romantically, and socially—within a culture that punishes deviation and vulnerability.
Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart) is a once‑promising Hollywood screenwriter whose career has stalled. He’s known for his temper, his cynicism, and his inability to play the studio game. One night, he invites a young hat‑check girl home to summarize a novel he’s supposed to adapt. She leaves alive—but is found murdered the next morning. Dix becomes the prime suspect. Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame), Dix’s neighbor, provides him with an alibi. She’s glamorous, self‑possessed, and emotionally bruised from past relationships. Her testimony clears him, and the two fall into a passionate, almost reckless romance. For a moment, Dix seems redeemed. He writes again. He softens. He dreams of a future, but the murder investigation never fully goes away—and neither does Dix’s volatility
Ray’s uses queer-coded emotional language to examine the tragedy of people who want to connect but can’t live truthfully. Bogart is superb. Unable to be in a stable heterosexual relationship and deeply suspicious of intimacy he is terrified of being “found out”. By contrast, Gloria Graham’s Laurel is not a femme fatale; she’s a woman who slowly realizes she’s in a relationship with someone who cannot love her in the way she needs.
One of the essential movies of the 1950s.
Screenplay by Andrew P. Solt and Edmund H. North from the novel by Dorothy B. Hughes
Cinematography: Burnett Guffey
Columbia Pictures
Streaming on Apple TV+, Amazon Prime and YouTube.
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