In a Lonely Place

 In a Lonely Place is a 1950 film noir drama which starred Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame.  Dix (Bogart) is a struggling Hollywood screenwriter, while Laurel (Grahame) is a neighbor of his who lives on the opposite side of the courtyard of their apartment complex.

One night, Dix invites a hat-check girl at a nightclub he was at to come home with him to help him with a screenplay he may write.  When they arrive at his apartment complex, they pass Laurel.  

At the end of the evening, Dix puts the hat-check girl in a taxi to take her home.  The next morning, he is questioned by the police as the hat-check girl was found murdered.  

However, Laurel provides an alibi for Dix as she saw the hat-check girl leave his apartment.  Afterwards, the two of them strike up a conversation where an attraction is evident.  

Dix and Laurel fall in love, but she becomes worried as she learns of his violent behavior.  She starts to believe that Dix may have murdered the hat-check girl.  

Dix asks Laurel to marry him.  She accepts, but only because she is afraid of his reaction if she turns him down.  

Later, Dix tries to strangle her when he sees that she has taken off her engagement ring.  He eventually calms down before ending her life.  

Just then, Dix receives a phone call from the police reporting that the hat-check girl's boyfriend confessed to her murder.  However, it is too late to salvage Dix's relationship with Laurel.

There is one amusing scene when Dix is preparing for the two of them to eat a grapefruit for breakfast.  He straightens out the curved grapefruit knife unaware of its purpose.  

I first noticed the beautiful actress Gloria Grahame in the 1946 classic film It Was a Wonderful Life.  She plays Violet, a friend of George Bailey's (James Stewart).

In one memorable scene, Violet walks past George, Bert the cop (Ward Bond) and Ernie the taxi driver (Frank Faylen) in a very flirtatious manner.  A pedestrian is almost hit by a car as he was staring at Violet.  Bert then says, "I think I'll go home and see what the wife's doing."

Gloria Grahame was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 1947 film Crossfire.  She lost out to Celeste Holm in Gentlemen's Agreement.  However, Grahame won the award with the 1952 film, The Bad and The Beautiful.

Sadly, Grahame died of cancer in 1981 at the age of fifty-seven.  That was the same year that Natalie Wood (at 43), Richard Boone (at 63), William Holden (at 63), Melvin Douglas (at 80) and my father also died (at 80).