Spidersecu
Don't Believe the Hype
Merolliv
I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.
Ava-Grace Willis
Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.
SnoopyStyle
Volatile drunk Carl Buckley gets fired from the train yard. He gets his flirtatious young wife Vicki to convince railroad executive John Owens to give his job back. Unbeknownst to Carl, the two have a history and she gives John sexual favor. Carl grows violently jealous and has Vicki lure John onto a train. Jeff Warren (Glenn Ford) encounters and is distracted by Vicki as Carl murders John.This is a dark melodramatic noir of non-sympathetic characters with no rooting interest. Gloria Grahame is a great saucy, full-on femme-fatale. I want to like Glenn Ford more but I don't. It's a lurid tale and perfect good for its genre. Fritz Lang's directing is good but it could be more stylishly dark. Overall, it is more melodrama than to my liking.
Martin Bradley
They say the French version was better. I can't possibly comment since I haven't seen it but it was Renoir and it was Zola so they may be right but this American version, now called "Human Desire" is by Fritz Lang and I think it comes close to being a masterpiece. He got Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame together again a year after "The Big Heat" and if you thought that painted a rotten picture of America, just wait until you see this.Ford's still the good guy, but not that good. He thinks nothing of sleeping with the wife of a co-worker and when she asks him to kill her husband he says, OK I'll do it. Of course, she's a tramp but there's more to it. You see, her husband is a jealous neanderthal who beats her up and who's already killed one man she's gone to bed with. Remember, Zola wrote the original novel so there are layers to this movie you don't often get in film noir. What we see on the surface is just that, the surface and there is more to the scenario than meets the eye.It helps that the wife is Gloria Grahame and she's magnificent; it may be her best performance. Grahame can be vulnerable and hurting and very, very dangerous all at the same time and, as the old saying goes, she could make a dead man come. It also helps that Glenn Ford is her leading man; even when playing the good guy Ford could be less than noble and you can trace this all the way back to "Gilda". When he tells Grahame he'll kill her husband, you believe him and it helps that the husband is Broderick Crawford. One look at Crawford and you know he's bad news.Was it a fluke that Lang and Ford and Grahame came together again to make this just after "The Big Heat" or was it providence? Either way, they hit pay dirt. Renoir's film may indeed be the better movie but you write this one off at your peril.
howdymax
This is Fritz Lang, so one would expect lots of dark emotion, double crossing, and sexual tension. Well, you won't be disappointed. This one has it all. The story is hardly original. In fact, Emile Zola was given story credit. It is a love triangle with Broderick Crawford and Gloria Grahame as an unhappy couple, with Glenn Ford at his somnambulistic best, showing all the emotion of a turnip. Watching him try to generate the emotion required to be the catalyst in a love triangle was almost painful. In fact, he almost sinks this movie into cinematic obscurity. Thankfully, it is resurrected by the performances of his costars. I am always amazed at the on screen sexuality of Gloria Grahame. She is hardly your typical Hollywood beauty. Her features are somehow askew, but she absolutely exudes sex. The other redeeming performance is given by Broderick Crawford. He plays her jealous, out of control husband. He has a natural explosive persona, but in this movie I kept waiting for him to fly off the rails.Speaking of rails. This is a train noir, if there is such a thing. It all takes place around, aboard, and about trains. Glenn Ford is an engineer and Crawford the yard boss. Train buffs will love it. There are numerous scenes of the engineer and passenger compartments, the rail yards, the roundhouse, and plenty of rambling track shots. It is all diesel in the '50's which I think most people would agree was the zenith of train travel in the US.Despite it's predictability and some of it's shortcomings, I still found this movie extremely enjoyable. My only real complaint came at the end, which seemed to leave the viewer at loose ends and feeling somewhat bewildered. Still, if you like trains and dark drama, take a look. It hasn't been around much and the title is fairly generic, so it isn't easy to find, but it is certainly worth the effort.
writers_reign
The definitive version of Zola's La Bete Humaine was made in 1938 by Jean Renoir and featured Jean Gabin, Fernand Ledoux, Julien Carette and weakest link Simone Simon. Lang offers Glenn Ford for Gabin, Brod Crawford for Ledoux, Edgar Buchanan for Carette and Gloria Grahame for Simon. Arguable Graham is marginally better than Simon but one out of four is a lousy average. Both films begin with shots of rails and trains but where Renoirs' are vibrant and exciting Langs' are lacklustre at best. All in all then Lang finishes out of the money, a bad nowhere to Renoir. That's not to say there aren't moments worth watching but these are mainly compositions rather than powerful dramatics. See it for comparison then forget it.
