Trailer
Plot summary
Dixon Steele was a successful screenwriter whose best years are behind him. His agent, Mel Lippman, presses him to adapt a novel, and at a nightclub the hat-check girl Mildred Atkinson has almost finished reading the book. Dix takes her home to hear the story rather than read it himself. The next morning the detective Brub Nicolai brings him to Captain Lochner, who says Mildred was killed and treats Dix as a suspect. Laurel Gray, a new tenant across the courtyard, says she saw Mildred leave, which clears him.
Cast
- Hadda Brooksas Singer
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about In a Lonely Place (1950)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- During filming, Gloria Grahame had to sign a contract giving her husband, director Nicholas Ray, control over her actions from 9 AM to 6 PM and forbidding her to nag, cajole, tease or distract him; the couple separated during the shoot but hid it, with Ray sleeping in a dressing room and claiming he was working on the script.
- Bacall, Rosalind Russell, Vivien Leigh, Ingrid Bergman and Ginger Rogers were all considered for the part of Laurel Gray. Warner Bros. would not loan out Bacall, and although Rogers was the producers' first choice, Ray wanted his wife Gloria Grahame.
- John Derek was considered for the role of Dixon Steele because the character was much younger in Dorothy B. Hughes' novel, but Edmund H. North's treatment was not used.
- Although Andrew Solt claimed Bogart loved his script so much he wanted to make it without revisions, only four pages of the 140-page script had no revisions, as Nicholas Ray made regular rewrites, some added on the day of shooting.
- The Smithereens' 1986 song "In a Lonely Place" was inspired by the film, and its chorus, "I was born the day I met you, lived a while when you loved me, died a little when we broke apart," is taken directly from the movie's dialogue.
