Film noir is a mood, a state of mind in a film world. It doesn't just have to be guys with guns, nor is it just infidelity and murder. But it usually rests on dark streets and in rooms with the lights off, with sultry women, average Joes and Big Heavys who are the bane of any person's existence, and sometimes it's just based on the narration, the setting, the way a character stares at one another or holds on a kiss. Human Desire, Fritz Lang's update of Emile Zola's book La bete Humaine (and also made into the wonderful film of the same name by Jean Renoir, a kind of pre-noir example in the 30's), is drenched in noir, and it's a wonderful example of what could be done with the right actors - or seemingly the right ones all the way through - and the right setting.
It's set among workers on trains, as an engineer, Jeff, played by Glenn Ford, comes back from Korea and is back a work, a nice but quiet type usually, and also works with Broderick Crawford's Carl. Carl is a big louse of a man, jealous as hell of his wife but contradictory in that he asks him to do a 'favor' in order to get his job back from his wife. She goes to see this boss-man, but Crawford ain't havin' it: he goes ahead and kills the guy on a train, and Glenn Ford's character suspects something, having seen Vicki come out of the same car. But he also kinda, sorta, falls for her, if only by a sudden kiss moment, and she tries to egg him on to 'get rid' of Carl, who has become a total drunk and waste after killing a man. Some guys just can't take it, but can Jeff go that far? And for a dame?
Sounds like a book title (matter of fact it was at some point), but it's how Lang presents these characters, in shadows and among the grime of the trains and tracks, and those dark rooms, that make things interesting. It's also good that there's a side character here, Ellen, played by Kathleen Case, as a way of giving some pause from the main plot (she's a younger woman who takes a fancy to Jeff as he comes back from the East and has a kimono for her). Lang makes us wonder: is this dame Vicki Jeff's only choice? Hopefully not, but the dilemma makes for some great chemistry for the two actors, and the tension is ratcheted up as Jeff has to ponder taking the next step for Vicki, or to not, as Carl isn't a stranger to him and this isn't fighting in a war.
Ford is fine in the role he's in, and Crawford gets to ham it up with his drunken a-hole of a husband who occasionally shows signs of regret (he's not all black-and-white morally, but as in noir has shades of grays). But with Grahame I wasn't totally sure about her performance, at least at first. She's playing something different than her previous Lang role in The Big Heat where she was just a full-on moll. Here she's a housewife, but one with a checkered past we don't know of entirely till near the final reel. She acts a little duplicitous, but I wasn't always believing her acting even if she looked the part of a femme fatale. It's a strange thing since she isn't bad in the role, just inconsistent, and it was mostly due to some good chemistry with Ford (who he himself is a little stiff in a non-bad-ass-villain role but stuff dependable) that I could believe her in the part.
Lang also gets some moments for "pure" cinema, that is without much dialog and just the physical locations and scenes, like how Jeff just motions for a cigarette and drives away as the engineer on the train, or how he tracks Carl one night coming back from a bar drunk. And sometimes the body language and way shots are framed tells a lot about the disconnect of these people: in the aftermath of the murder, one night we see Carl and Vicki at home having dinner, very torn apart, and how they're placed in the house, separated by kitchen and living room or on other side, tells a lot about where they're at even when they don't say much. Things like that, or how Jeff and Vicki are lit outside by the tracks at night contemplating their love/lust for one another, is done with such emotion that is just fine.
Other times there is some melodrama, and, again, Crawford does ham it up in some scenes to where it comes close to unintentional hilarity (the crowd I saw the movie with laughed at a few key moments that would've probably been dead-silent back in the day, but this may be more for the change in times than anything else). If it's not quite as great as Renoir's film it's that it's not aiming as high artistically, I think. Renoir's film is a tragic romance, while this is more of a B-thriller with some aspirations for high artistry. It's not to say it's a pale imitation of that film, but it's just different. Lang's world is a bit colder, more cynical, more un-trusting of what humanity is capable of except the occasional good and usually evil tasks. No one character in Human Desire gets off the hook (except maybe Ellen), but the varying degrees makes for a strong comment on post-war morality, a defining characteristic between Lang and Renoir's adaptations.
In other words, Human Desire is cool and brutal and more than a bit sexy, and if it's not all great there's enough here for buffs to chew on.
It's set among workers on trains, as an engineer, Jeff, played by Glenn Ford, comes back from Korea and is back a work, a nice but quiet type usually, and also works with Broderick Crawford's Carl. Carl is a big louse of a man, jealous as hell of his wife but contradictory in that he asks him to do a 'favor' in order to get his job back from his wife. She goes to see this boss-man, but Crawford ain't havin' it: he goes ahead and kills the guy on a train, and Glenn Ford's character suspects something, having seen Vicki come out of the same car. But he also kinda, sorta, falls for her, if only by a sudden kiss moment, and she tries to egg him on to 'get rid' of Carl, who has become a total drunk and waste after killing a man. Some guys just can't take it, but can Jeff go that far? And for a dame?
Sounds like a book title (matter of fact it was at some point), but it's how Lang presents these characters, in shadows and among the grime of the trains and tracks, and those dark rooms, that make things interesting. It's also good that there's a side character here, Ellen, played by Kathleen Case, as a way of giving some pause from the main plot (she's a younger woman who takes a fancy to Jeff as he comes back from the East and has a kimono for her). Lang makes us wonder: is this dame Vicki Jeff's only choice? Hopefully not, but the dilemma makes for some great chemistry for the two actors, and the tension is ratcheted up as Jeff has to ponder taking the next step for Vicki, or to not, as Carl isn't a stranger to him and this isn't fighting in a war.
Ford is fine in the role he's in, and Crawford gets to ham it up with his drunken a-hole of a husband who occasionally shows signs of regret (he's not all black-and-white morally, but as in noir has shades of grays). But with Grahame I wasn't totally sure about her performance, at least at first. She's playing something different than her previous Lang role in The Big Heat where she was just a full-on moll. Here she's a housewife, but one with a checkered past we don't know of entirely till near the final reel. She acts a little duplicitous, but I wasn't always believing her acting even if she looked the part of a femme fatale. It's a strange thing since she isn't bad in the role, just inconsistent, and it was mostly due to some good chemistry with Ford (who he himself is a little stiff in a non-bad-ass-villain role but stuff dependable) that I could believe her in the part.
Lang also gets some moments for "pure" cinema, that is without much dialog and just the physical locations and scenes, like how Jeff just motions for a cigarette and drives away as the engineer on the train, or how he tracks Carl one night coming back from a bar drunk. And sometimes the body language and way shots are framed tells a lot about the disconnect of these people: in the aftermath of the murder, one night we see Carl and Vicki at home having dinner, very torn apart, and how they're placed in the house, separated by kitchen and living room or on other side, tells a lot about where they're at even when they don't say much. Things like that, or how Jeff and Vicki are lit outside by the tracks at night contemplating their love/lust for one another, is done with such emotion that is just fine.
Other times there is some melodrama, and, again, Crawford does ham it up in some scenes to where it comes close to unintentional hilarity (the crowd I saw the movie with laughed at a few key moments that would've probably been dead-silent back in the day, but this may be more for the change in times than anything else). If it's not quite as great as Renoir's film it's that it's not aiming as high artistically, I think. Renoir's film is a tragic romance, while this is more of a B-thriller with some aspirations for high artistry. It's not to say it's a pale imitation of that film, but it's just different. Lang's world is a bit colder, more cynical, more un-trusting of what humanity is capable of except the occasional good and usually evil tasks. No one character in Human Desire gets off the hook (except maybe Ellen), but the varying degrees makes for a strong comment on post-war morality, a defining characteristic between Lang and Renoir's adaptations.
In other words, Human Desire is cool and brutal and more than a bit sexy, and if it's not all great there's enough here for buffs to chew on.