In thisbeautiful, haunting film, Humphrey Bogart plays a disillusioned screenwriter whois blacklisted for his alcoholism and temper, and destroyed by the contaminatingatmosphere of suspicion and distrust. While director Nicholas Ray was notblacklisted, he was an important figure of the Hollywood left, and a member ofthe Communist party in the thirties. "One can say that of all those whoentered directing around the end of the war, it is Ray, in his major period, whodevoted himself most systematically to an explicit critique of masculinity andthe 'normal' ascription of sexual roles°.The 'lonely place' of In a Lonely Placeis not only Hollywood, where Humphrey Bogart is a recognized screenwriter, butalso 'man's place'°.If we can assimilate this film to the noir cycle through itscentral motifs°we must also recognize in it a lucidity about the sources of thesickness-the socialization of men-at least equal to that of The Prowler."(NB)