There are two types of loneliness in Nicholas Ray’s In A Lonely Place. First is the individual loneliness felt by Dixon ‘Dix’ Steele (Humphrey Bogart), who, through his destructive personality finds himself isolated as a human being. Second is the loneliness Dix shares with nearly every character in the film, that of an insecure employee watching their relevance diminish within a system that doesn’t care, the ‘lonely place’ of the title referring not just to the situation Dix finds himself in, but to Hollywood itself.
Bogart gives one of his finest performances as Dix, a cynical charmer with an erratic violent streak. A screenplay writer, struggling to get work, he finds himself the suspect in a murder investigation. Luckily, his neighbour Laurel Grey (Gloria Grahame) not only provides him with an alibi but also a reason to live when they suddenly find themselves in love. The story charts the demise of their relationship as Dix’s behaviour deteriorates into paranoia and psychopathic rage. Gloria Graham brings a hardened worldliness to the character of Lauren, whose vulnerabilities spill out as her trust in Dix begins to fade. She had been engaged to a rich producer but left him and now finds herself financially insecure. Both her and Dix’s precarious position within the Hollywood pecking order is reinforced by two other characters who form part of the small loyal band centred around Dix. One is his agent, Mel Lippman (Art Smith), who is desperate to find Dix work, partly because he cares for the man and partly because he needs his 10%. The other is Charley Waterman (Robert Warwick), a star from an earlier era, who hangs around the Hollywood watering holes, perpetually drunk.
It’s Charley who best personifies the fear of all the other characters, for he really is washed up. His acting style is out of fashion, he’s a hopeless alcoholic and pretty much unemployable. Dix is both fond of the old boy and unsettled by him, perhaps seeing a future vision of himself. Warwick was tailor-made to play Charley, he’d been a matinee idol during the silent era and a successful talkies star but was by this point struggling for work. Bogart, who had worked with him in his youth, insisted on Warwick for the role, and there is genuine warmth between the two actors on the screen. Warwick clearly relished the part, taking what could have been a caricatured role and breathing real pathos into it. He makes his first appearance early on in a bar where Dix is meeting colleagues to discuss a film. They don’t want anything to do with Charley, but Dix is happy to have him in the company and buys him a drink. A hot-shot producer bursts in on the scene and for no good reason begins to humiliate Charley in front of the entire bar. As he loudly sets out Charley’s failings, the old actor’s face freezes into a forlorn mask for a few moments, before he regains some dignity and comes back with a gentle retort. But for those few seconds he looks utterly lost and broken, a man who is drinking to forget the failings of his life and who has just been cruelly reminded of them.
The next time Charley makes an appearance is round at Dix’s flat, where Dix and Lauren are putting together a script. It’s Thursday and he’s come around for his weekly hand out from Dix. He immediately falls down the steps into the lounge, then decides he will recite poetry to Dix to help him to sleep. The scene takes on an added depth when he begins to recite Shakespeare’s ‘Sonnet 29’, a poem which touches on both his own situation and Dix’s: ‘When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes’. Warwick manages to pull off a tightrope walk between drunken ham and genuinely moving recital, his large physical presence and deep baritone voice adding a layer of gravitas to proceedings. The scene reaches a crescendo of emotion, underpinned with a swell of orchestration, as Charley delivers the last line direct to Dix, a heartfelt eulogy to his friend’s loyalty and kindness: ‘For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings / That then I scorn to change my state with kings’. His face is full of poise and dignity, but it vanishes almost before he’s finished, replaced by drunken absentmindedness as he’s handed his hat. Earlier Lauren thrusts some money into his hand, and he winces with a mixture of glee and embarrassment. They are subtle moments but they’re devastating.
Charley’s last scene in the film is back at the bar. He has arrived to celebrate the engagement of Dix and Lauren. Dressed in Top Hat and Tails he informs the hostess, who thinks he’s still in costume, that he is wearing the ‘formal attire of a gentleman’. It’s played for laughs but there’s genuine nobility at work. Charley knows he really is a gentleman, and the audience know it too. In the brief moments he has appeared in the film, we have seen glimpses of a fine human being, one who values friendship, is courteous and respectful, kind and gentle. He understands none of that stands for much in the world he inhabits but he still stands tall, ironically requesting there be no applause when he enters in his finery, knowing full well he is being completely ignored. It’s this image, Charley in the garb of an older time, a representative of older ideals, which best sums up his character. He appears ludicrous yet honourable at the same time. In the hands of a lesser actor this combination would have slid, inevitably, into the realms of broad comedy; in the hands of Robert Warwick it becomes a fitting tribute to the spirit of a vanishing age of cinema and the forgotten men who embodied it.
Sandy Milroy.
View Movie: https://archive.org/details/inalonelyplace1950
