Going deep for a pair directed by film noir legend Nicholas Ray:
IN A LONELY PLACE (1950) (B+) - Humphrey Bogart stars as Dixon Steele, a Hollywood screenwriter with anger management issues who is suffering through an extended dry spell. He lands in hot water when a hat-check girl he took home late one night ends up dead the next day, and police reluctantly have to treat their pal Dix as a suspect.
A sultry new neighbor, Laurel (Gloria Grahame), an aspiring actress, might be Dix's alibi as well as his new love interest. But Dix's friend, the police detective Brub Nicolai (Frank Lovejoy) sows doubts in Laurel's mind about her flinty beau, and this turns into a tight little psychological thriller.
Bogart is suitably gruff, and Grahame ("Crossfire") goes toe to toe with him. Nicholas Ray's camera is fascinated by her captivating looks. In one scene, as she gets a massage, her face is foregrounded, taking up most of the screen, and uplit to enchanting effect. Ray's pacing is efficient, and he is at ease capturing a car chase and road-rage incident as if shooting a documentary. And his sucker-punch of an ending -- the screenplay is by Andrew Solt and Edmund North, based on a novel by Dorothy Hughes -- hits square in the gut.
SPOTTED: Don't blink. Billy Gray, barely glimpsed as a child autograph seeker, would go on to play Bud on "Father Knows Best." James Arness (TV's "Gunsmoke") makes an uncredited appearance as a detective.
BORN TO BE BAD (1950) (B) - Joan Fontaine dominates the big screen as a free-spirited wannabe debutante whose reckless demeanor upends several lives. Fontaine mixes a prim, innocent look with crazy eyes as Christabel, who flirts with a friend's rich fiance and strings along a struggling author -- while serving as muse for a suave painter.
It must have been racy for its time, as Christabel beds multiple lovers and doesn't mirror the more ladylike Donna (Joan Leslie), whose engagement is endangered by the carpetbagging jezebel. Even when Christabel wrests the wealthy Curtis (Zachary Scott) away from Donna, she can't suppress her lingering feelings for the ruggedly handsome writer, Nick (Robert Ryan) -- until everyone ends up miserable.
Fontaine ("Beyond a Reasonable Doubt") is a force of nature as the manipulative floozy, and the others raise their game to keep up with her. Visually, it's blander and more traditional than "In a Lonely Place," which immediately preceded it in Ray's catalog. But Fontaine's all-out performance makes this a fun hour and a half.
SPOTTED: Mel Ferrer (no relation to Jose but once married to Audrey Hepburn), here playing the bohemian artist, would have a full career in television in the '70s and a regular gig on "Falcon Crest" in the early '80s.
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