Human Desire
Directed by Fritz Lang
Written by Alfred Hayes based on the novel La Bete Humaine by Emile Zola
1954/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation
First viewing/Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics II
[box] Jean: All women are alike. They just got different faces so that the men can tell them apart.[/box]
Fritz Lang’s adaptation of Victor Hugo’s La Bete Humaine features the most fatal of Gloria Grahame’s femme fatales and some stylish imagery.
Jeff Warren (Glenn Ford) has recently returned to his beloved job as a railroad engineer after a tour in Korea. He rooms again in the home of his friend and co-worker Alec Simmons (Edgar Buchanan). Alec’s daughter Jean has grown into a lovely, wholesome young woman who is clearly in love with Jeff. Jeff wants only a quiet life of railroading, fishing, and an occasional movie on Saturday night. Jean adds that he needs the right girl to share these with. Unfortunately, Jeff is not fated to find her.
In the meantime, we meet yardman Carl Buckley (Broderick Crawford). He has been fired from his job and urges his luscious young wife Vicki (Grahame) to use her influence with wealthy importer John Owens to get it back for him. Vicki reluctantly agrees to do this and succeeds. Her delayed arrival back to their room provokes the insanely jealous Carl into a rage, though. His revenge involves implicating Vicki in Owens’ murder by luring him with a love letter that he forces Vicki to write. He will hold the letter over Vicki as a form of blackmail to keep her by his side.
Jeff, who is deadheading it back to his home station on the train, witnesses the couple exiting Owens’ compartment. Vicki uses her charms to distract him and then to get him to withhold testimony at the inquest. They begin a torrid love affair. Vicki frequently laments not being able to leave her abusive husband who has some strange hold over her. When the now drunken Carl loses his job yet again, matters come to a head.
Those familiar with Jean Renoir’s adaptation of Zola’s novel will recognize the story as a fairly faithful modernization of the same material to this point in the plot, minus the hereditary alcoholism that drives the protagonist into homicidal fits. While I did not miss that part of the story, the ending of the Lang version differs dramatically and causes it to lack the haunting tragedy of Renoir’s version. The times and the Production Code cause this to seem watered down in comparison.
That said, the performances in this one are all first rate and it looks splendid. Crawford makes a pathetic villain and Grahame keeps us guessing throughout. Recommended.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cbmSWBOpao
Clip – Gloria Grahame and Broderick Crawford – cinematography by Burnett Guffey
