How "In a Lonely Place" Changed Noir's Direction

"“That feminine intuition stuff sells magazines, but in real life it's still a fairy tale,” the detective says. But Lisa is right: the woman across the courtyard didn't leave; she was murdered by her husband."

"Ray and screenwriters Andrew P. Solt and Edmund H. North do an excellent job of translating this “intuition” that Hughes carefully kneads into her novel, despite its adherence to Dix's perspective. It's an intuition, or gut feeling, that few remark upon when talking about Hughes' masterwork, and Ray's adaptation of it."

"At one point in Ray's film, Humphrey Bogart's Dix nearly beats to death a young man whose car he crashes into. At the crossroads of love and fear, his girlfriend Laurel (Gloria Grahame) heads to Dix's friend Brub Nicolai's home. She's there not to see Brub (Frank Lovejoy), who is a detective, but his wife, Sylvia (Jeff Donnell)."

"Dix is a screenwriter who is suspected of murder. His sardonic sense of humor, along with his understanding of how a murderer's mind works, courtesy of his writerly imagination and sensibilities, has not done him any favors in persuading others that he is innocent. Laurel has mostly been convinced of Dix's innocence, but doubts begin creeping in as Dix becomes increasingly violent and paranoid."

Dix Steele and the women around him detect something wrong through an intuition that guides their suspicions. A similar idea appears when a woman’s habits and possessions are used to infer what happened across a courtyard, revealing that a woman was murdered rather than simply absent. The film adaptation translates this gut feeling into scenes while keeping Dix’s perspective. Dix is a screenwriter suspected of murder, and his sardonic humor and understanding of a murderer’s mind do not convince others of his innocence. As he becomes more violent and paranoid, doubts spread, especially for his girlfriend Laurel, who seeks answers through others connected to the case.

Read at Roger Ebert