Human Desire
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Human Desire | |
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 French theatrical poster |
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| Directed by | Fritz Lang |
| Produced by | Lewis J. Rachmil |
| Written by | Story: Émile Zola Screenplay: Alfred Hayes |
| Starring | Glenn Ford Gloria Grahame Broderick Crawford |
| Music by | Daniele Amfitheatrof |
| Cinematography | Burnett Guffey |
| Editing by | Aaron Stell |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | August 15, 1954 (U.S.A.) |
| Running time | 91 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Human Desire (1954) is a black-and-white film noir directed by Fritz Lang, and based on the novel La Bête humaine by Émile Zola. The story was made twice before in film: La Bête humaine (1938) directed by Jean Renoir and Die Bestie im Menschen (1920).[1]
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[edit] Plot
Hard-drinking Carl Buckley is a railroad worker fired from his job. His seductive wife pays a visit to a railroad official to try to get his job back. When Buckley suspects that his sexy, younger wife Vicki (Grahame) has done more than just talk with a railroad official, he first brutally beats her then he tracks down the railroad man and eventually stabs him to death in a jealous rage. Train conductor, and Korean War vet, Jeff Warren (Ford) knows that Vicki was a witness at the murder scene, but because of mutual attraction, refuses to testify against her. The two begin an affair with each other. Vicki then decides Warren should kill her violent husband and comes up with a plan.
[edit] Cast
- Glenn Ford as Jeff Warren
- Gloria Grahame as Vicki Buckley
- Broderick Crawford as Carl Buckley
- Edgar Buchanan as Alec Simmons
- Kathleen Case as Ellen Simmons
- Peggy Maley as Jean
- Diane DeLaire as Vera Simmons
- Grandon Rhodes as John Owens
[edit] Critical reception
Critic Dennis Schwartz liked the look of the film and wrote, "Cinematographer Burnett Guffey is relentless in capturing the spiritual desolation of the characters with ominous shots of the myriad railroad tracks interweaving and separating in a train yard at night. It becomes a metaphor for the human paths criss-crossing each other. Penetrating and searing, Human Desire is a nagging allegory about the darkness of human motivation and the corruption of the soul, and of desperate characters who live unfulfilled lives. It's not one of Lang's great pictures (it becomes too heavy-handed in parts), but anything Lang does has a power that is hard to forget. This one entertains as a riveting melodrama."[2]
Critic Dave Kehr wrote of the film, "Gloria Grahame, at her brassiest, pleads with Glenn Ford to do away with her slob of a husband, Broderick Crawford...A gripping melodrama, marred only by Ford's inability to register an appropriate sense of doom."[3]
[edit] References
[edit] Notes
- ^ Human Desire at the Internet Movie Database.
- ^ Schwartz, Dennis. Ozus' World Movie Reviews, film review, May 2, 2004. Last accessed: January 27, 2008.
- ^ Kehr, Dave. Chicago Reader, review, 2008. Last accessed: January 27, 2007.
[edit] External links
- Human Desire at the Internet Movie Database
- Human Desire at Allmovie
- Human Desire at the TCM Movie Database
- Human Desire at Film Noir of the Week
- Human Desire at DVD Beaver (includes images)
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