In a Lonely Place

Los Angelenos always come out for films set in Hollywood and Los Angeles and this program pairs two of the best. One of the great films of the American cinema and one of Ray’s most poignant studies of a social outcast, In a Lonely Place tells the story of two characters that briefly trade pain for love. When Dixon Steele (Bogart), a Hollywood screenwriter suffering from creative burnout, is implicated in the murder of a hatcheck girl, the glamorous new tenant (Grahame) across the courtyard provides an alibi, a warm bed and domestic bliss until she begins to doubt the innocence of the man she saved and loves. Contemporary in its heady mixture of sex and fear, In a Lonely Place is a visually seductive depiction of a love affair that is doomed, and a sardonic portrait of life in a company town. As critic Richard Schickel wrote in Time, “Steele is a modern archetype—a talented, disappointed man surrendering to an anger he cannot govern, an existential blackness he cannot understand.” Featured in a Humphrey Bogart Centennial Retrospective in 2000—where a highlight of the night was an onstage appearance by 84 year-old Hadda Brooks who belted out the torch song she sings in the film—In a Lonely Place returned to the Bing Theater in a 2007 series devoted to Burnett Guffey, the gifted cinematographer responsible for the silky noir imagery.
Bing Theater |  $10 general admission. $7 museum members, seniors (62+), students with valid ID | Tickets: 323 857-6010 or purchase online.