IN A LONELY PLACE (1950) ** It's not all that unusual to see a contemporary film, and think about some classic actor who might have done more with a role. Less often....well, this Humphrey Bogart character, I think Jack Nicholson might have really done something with him. Hell, I think he did, just as someone else in different movies, and in real life. Bogey can be tough, and he can be sensitive in his way, but here he's not entirely fluid jetting back and forth between them, the molasses isn't enough like the mercury they ordered, and mercury can be... It's still not a bad role, nor movie, it's taut, you wonder, you figure, you believe, you substitute all kinds of self-motivations for the guessing that's really going on, the actors around him are fine (Robert Warwick!), it has that Hotel California feel before the Eagles put a name on it, L.A.'s just gonna be that same old bitch man, it must have been that way before the microbe, where ghosts hang out and come to life, and stuff things at you if you stand or stare too long, and flit them while you're moving.
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