Dix Steele from IN A LONELY PLACE (1950)

Film noir and its losers...

Image from BAMF Style

Of all the characters in all the films noir in all of Hollywood, Dix Steele is the most relatable to me. I, too, am a grumpy, temperamental screenwriter who's a little bit in love with Gloria Grahame. I just don't live in a lavish apartment in Hollywood. Action!

Los Angeles, California. Dix Steele (Humphrey Bogart) has to read a book that he's going to adapt for the screen. He doesn't want to, so he gets hat-check girl Mildred Atkinson (Martha Stewart) to come home with him so she can tell him the story, since she's so clearly engrossed by it. The next day, she is found dead and Dix becomes the prime suspect. The only possible witness is his neighbor Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame). Problem is, they fall in love...

Based on the Dorothy B. Hughes novel of the same name and adapted by Andrew P. Solt and Edmund H. North, In a Lonely Place (dir. Nicholas Ray) is an unusual film noir. In fact, I'd argue that it is really a romance drama disguised as a film noir. And if so, then this is, by far, the most romantic film noir of all time.

‘I didn't say I was a gentleman. I said I was tired.’ Dix Steele

Dix Steele is a complicated man. His anger management issues have gotten the better of him more times than he can count. We see this in the first scene, when he gets out of his car to beat up another driver while sitting in traffic. His issues are well-known in Hollywood (isn't everything?). His friends know that he gets violent when he gets angry, that he lashes out at people and then asks for their forgiveness. His agent and oldest friend Mel Lippman (Art Smith) has put up with him for years, because he knows that deep down Dix is a good man. He just doesn't know how to show it. He's never any cause to show it. Until Laurel came along.

'I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me' Dix Steele

Laurel is the only person who could vouch for Dix and confirm his alibi. She was home all night. She saw Dix bringing Mildred home, then sending her away. So naturally, she relays all of this to the police and Dix thanks her. They talk, they flirt, they smile, they kiss... And Dix Steele lives for a few weeks. Laurel's love is unexpected. It's new. It's something he wants to resist but not really. It's something he's never had but always looked for. And now he has it, in the most unusual circumstances. The most unforgiving circumstances. They fall in love and live out their whirlwind romance while he's still a suspect. The uncertainty of what happened is the movie's most heart-wrenching antagonist. Is he a murderer? Is he innocent? Laurel is not sure.

But we... sort of are. The ingenious plotting makes it pretty clear. And so we root for his happiness. And hers. They are wonderful together. They bring out the best in each other. Dix is calmer when he's with Laurel. For the most part. His anger comes out in certain moments, and she sees it... and becomes gradually more suspicious.

‘Why can't be like other people?' Laurel Gray

As a screenwriter, Dix Steele is not used to being the main character. He initially dismisses the role he may have played in Mildred's death, then acts it out for his friends with great detail and eye for storytelling. Dix thinks he can control the narrative. Mostly because he knows what the narrative is. And he knows, as any good screenwriter does, what's really at the core of it all. Love. Romance. Laurel. That's what he focuses on. And that's what makes this film so heart-breaking. Dix and Laurel's love story is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in a film noir. And it had to end the way it did. When the truth is revealed to Laurel, she understands that it's too late for them. They met under terrible circumstances, tried to make the best of it, but life got in the way. The 'what could have been's of film noir have rarely been so poignant. If they'd met in a different, not so lonely, place, things may have worked out. One could say it just wasn't meant to be, but it was. And it didn't happen. It couldn't go on. And not because of some big twist. But because of what we knew all along, and Laurel didn't.

‘Yesterday, this would have meant so much to us. Now it doesn't matter... it doesn't matter at all.' Laurel Gray

In a Lonely Place breaks your heart again and again. But don't let that fool you. There are plenty of funny moments and, if anything, for the first 20 minutes or so, Bogey's comic timing has never been better. Also, what's with all these jokes in these movies about Hollywood about someone being talked out of making Gone With the Wind? Somebody needs to do a compilation of all of them, they're hilarious.

We bid farewell to Dix Steele and In a Lonely Place. Our next loser is a woman who disrupts the peace when she returns to her hometown. The film is Clash by Night (1952), the actress is Barbara Stanwyck and the character... is Mae Doyle.

See you on the sunny side of the street.