Trivia / In a Lonely Place

• Playing with Character Type: Humphrey Bogart plays the same jaded, stoic, wisecracking thug he would play as a private detective. And it works perfectly, precisely because this film is a Deconstruction of that character type, and as per Louise Brooks (a friend of Bogart's), the only performance that comes close to how the real Bogart was.
• Reality Subtext:
  • The apartment Steele lives in is modelled on the house Nicholas Ray lived in when he first arrived in Hollywood. Ray also cast his wife Gloria Grahame in the part. They had temporarily separated and the atmosphere of disillusioned romance was inspired by their own failing marriage. During production, Ray actually slept on the sets of the film.
  • As noted by Louise Brooks and others, Dixon Steele is the Bogart character that most clearly resembles the real-life one: charismatic, carelessly generous to his friends, boisterous but with a suppressed mean streak that occasionally worried people.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Lauren Bacall and Ginger Rogers were originally considered for the role of Laurel Gray. Bogart wanted Bacall, his wife, to play opposite him but Warner Bros wouldn't release her from her contract, while Rogers was originally the producer's first choice until director Nicholas Ray convinced them that Gloria Grahame, his wife at the time, was the right choice for the role.
  • In the original ending and the final shooting script, Dix actually does kill Laurel in the heat of their argument. Martha comes and discovers the body as Dix silently types his script. Later, when his detective friend comes to arrest him, Dix says that he's almost done with his script. There is a close-up of the last page of the script, echoing the words Dix said in the car to Laurel: "I was born when she kissed me, I died when she left me, I live a few weeks while she loved me." After not being pleased with that ending, director Nicholas Ray decided to bring in Bogart, Grahame, Art Smith plus the cameramen and sound men and improvised the ending we have.

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