MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.
In A Lonely Place (1950, 94 minutes)
Like current movie king George Clooney, some men wear middle-age especially well. Humphrey Bogart (1899-1957) didn’t catch fire with the public until 1941 when he played San Francisco detective Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon. Whether embracing Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca or future wife Lauren Bacall as L.A. gumshoe Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep, playing scruffy boat captain Charlie Allnut in The African Queen or neurotic ship captain Philip Queeg in The Caine Mutiny, Bogie just played himself. One strong Bogart role that’s slipped through the cracks is screenwriter Dixon Steele from film-noir gem In A Lonely Place.
Late at night on a Hollywood boulevard, an expensive convertible pulls up alongside Steele’s older model. “Dix Steele! How are you?” calls out a pretty girl from the passenger’s seat of the convertible. “Don’t you recognize me? You wrote the last picture I did for Columbia,” she says. “I make it a point to never watch what I write,” Steele explains. “You! Stop bothering my wife!” demands her older companion behind the wheel. “Oh, you shouldn’t have done it, honey, no matter how much money that pig’s got,” says Steele. “Pull over to the curb!” threatens the husband. “What’s wrong with right here?” says Steele angrily jerking the car door open to settle things. The convertible speeds off into the night.
Steele drives to Paul’s, a restaurant with a movie-biz clientele. He’s confronted near the door by three kids. “Can I have your autograph?” says a small boy. “Who am !?” asks Steele. “I don’t know,” answers the kid. “Don’t bother, he’s nobody,” says his blasé older sister. “She’s right,” says Steele, signing his name.
“Dix! We’ve been calling you for the last three days!” says his silver-haired agent (Art Smith) accompanied by director Lloyd Barnes (Morris Ankrum), inside the bistro. “You’re in no position to be choosy, Dix,” insists Barnes. “You haven’t written a hit since before the war. Your last picture … ” “So it stunk!” interrupts Steele. “Everybody makes flops except for you. You’ve remade the same picture for the last 20 years. You know what you are? You’re a popcorn salesman!”
A boorish younger director, J.R. (Lewis Howard), bursts in, ignoring the proffered hand of Charlie Waterman, slumped at the bar, staring into his drink. “You don’t shake hands with an actor?” says Steele. “You call this an actor? He hasn’t been able to remember a line for 10 years!” says J.R. “He made your father-in-law a couple of million,” retorts Steele. “Pop made a star out of a drunkard!” sneers J.R. “Look at him, gazing into his crystal ball.” Steele grabs the director by the collar and tosses him across the room. Afterwards, the restaurant’s manager coddles Steele: “I suppose he had it coming, but next time, please do it in the parking lot.”
