Capital Celluloid 2025 — Day 85: Thu Mar 27

In A Lonely Place (Ray, 1950): Prince Charles Cinema, 5.45pm

In a Lonely Place is one of the best films about life in Hollywood and one of Nicholas Ray's finest movies. Highly recommended. This 35mm screening is part of a film noir season at the Prince Charles Cinema (you can find all the details here).

"I lived a few weeks while you loved me . . ."

Chicago Reader review:
'With his weary romanticism, Humphrey Bogart was made for Nicholas Ray, and together they produced two taut thrillers (the other was Knock on Any Door). In this one (1950, 94 min.), Bogart is an artistically depleted Hollywood screenwriter whose charm is inextricable from his deep emotional distress. He falls for a golden girl across the way, Gloria Grahame, who in turn helps him face a murder charge. Grahame and Ray were married, but they separated during the shooting, and the screen breakup of the Bogart-Grahame romance consciously incorporates elements of Ray's personality (he even used the site of his first Hollywood apartment as Bogart's home in the film). The film's subject is the attractiveness of instability, and Ray's self-examination is both narcissistic and sharply critical, in fascinating combination. It's a breathtaking work, and a key citation in the case for confession as suitable material for art' 
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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