Film and Media Studies Commons^™

I Knew You Before I Ever Saw You: In A Lonely Place (1950), Elaine P. Lennon Dr

Dr Elaine Lennon

1950’s In a Lonely Place is a dark exercise in film noir paranoid drama about a washed up screenwriter accused of murder whose violent rages threaten his relationship with the woman he loves, and whose alibi protects him as he attempts to prove his innocence. It is a high watermark in the career of both star Humphrey Bogart, who produced it, and director Nicholas Ray. The representation of screenwriting as a career is a canny gloss on the effect not only of World War Two but of the HUAC witch hunt, which had its own impact on the significance of …