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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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TT: On the big screen

August 18, 2009 by Terry Teachout

in_a_lonely_place.jpgNew York-based cinephiles, take note: In a Lonely Place, starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame, opens Friday at the Film Forum for a nine-day run. Nicholas Ray’s 1950 study of an angry screenwriter suspected of murder is widely ranked next to Jacques Tourneur’s Out of the Past as the quintessential film noir, a judgment in which I wholeheartedly concur.
David Thomson, among countless other critics, is a great admirer of In a Lonely Place:

Like any American director, [Ray] had to accept some routine assignments, but in the next few years he added these marvels to his list: In a Lonely Place (with Humphrey Bogart playing an embittered and potentially violent Hollywood screenwriter); On Dangerous Ground (which has Robert Ryan as a brutal cop); and The Lusty Men (where Robert Mitchum is a rodeo veteran who agrees to train the young Arthur Kennedy, but falls in love with his wife Susan Hayward).
None of those films did especially well. They were all black and white. But they are filled with anguish and ecstasy and a kind of framing and lighting and camera movement that steadily deepens the routine script material. In a Lonely Place is less showy than Sunset Boulevard, but it is the truer portrait of Hollywood compromise and hypocrisy….

Certainly it’s the greatest performance that Bogart ever gave in front of a camera, and if you’ve never seen it in a theater, I strongly recommend that you make every effort to do so now. Book your tickets now–I’ll be very surprised if this one doesn’t sell out.
For more information, go here.
* * *
The theatrical trailer for In a Lonely Place. The singer performing “I Hadn’t Anyone Till You” is Hadda Brooks:

TT: Almanac

August 18, 2009 by Terry Teachout

“Now the world in general doesn’t know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its comfortable habits of thought, and its first reaction is one of anger.”
W. Somerset Maugham, Great Novelists and Their Novels

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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