Human Desire (1954)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Fritz Lang

Writers:

Émile Zola (novel) and
Alfred Hayes (writer)

Release Date:

5 August 1954 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Film-Noir

Tagline:

She was born to be bad...to be kissed...to make trouble!

Plot:

Engineer Jeff, returning from Korea, falls in Love with his co-worker Carl's wife Vicky, who both commited a murder...

Plot Keywords:

Train | Foreign Language Adaptation | Railroad | Based On Novel

Cast

Glenn Ford	...	Jeff Warren
Gloria Grahame	...	Vicki Buckley
Broderick Crawford	...	Carl Buckley
Edgar Buchanan	...	Alec Simmons
Kathleen Case	...	Ellen Simmons
Peggy Maley	...	Jean
Diane DeLaire	...	Vera Simmons
Grandon Rhodes	...	John Owens

Also Known As:

The Human Beast (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Canada:PG (Ontario) | UK:X (1954) | West Germany:16 (f) | Finland:K-16 | Spain:13 | USA:Approved (PCA #16878, Adult Audience) | Sweden:15 | Argentina:13

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

The "Central National" Railroad was portrayed by equipment and properties of the Southern Pacific Railroad.

Quotes:

Ellen Simmons: What would you men do if there were no women around to sew your buttons on ?
Alec Simmons: Without women we wouldn't need any buttons !

Movie Connections:

Version of La bestia humana (1957)

"Most women are unhappy, they just pretend they aren't."

This is a great little noir from Fritz Lang, one of the genre's best exponents. It's minor Lang, for sure – his best days were now behind him – but it's still a terrific tale of quiet desperation all the same. Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame are re-united with Lang after the previous year's The Big Heat, and they work well together. Ford is a little bland at times, and it's up to Grahame to keep the story moving, but she's more than up to the job. She was a great actress, sadly under-rated, and you usually knew exactly where you were with her. Lang seems to play on that, here. When we first meet her character, Vicki Buckley, she is lying on her back with her legs in the air, and the insinuation is clear. Despite not being a particularly attractive woman – she was 31 when this was filmed, but she looks older; her eyes look tired, her face a little doughy, and her thin lips are concealed behind a vulgar mask of lipstick – Grahame (and her character) exudes an earthy sexiness that is almost unintended.

It is this quality that makes us think she is just another femme fatale, but she's something more than that in this one. She is as much a victim – of drunken husband Broderick Crawford – as she is a villain, and her actions are as much out of self-preservation as they are wickedness. Her and Crawford's relationship is one that is finely etched, and probably the most interesting aspect of the film. Little is said about the details of their relationship, but we can figure it out from the way they behave around one another. Vicki has settled – for whatever reason – while hubby Carl can't help feeling she's out of his league and is scared of losing her which is why he is so jealous. These weaknesses and insecurities help drive the film along, and Lang gets good measure out of them. Look at that mis-en-scene as Crawford is leaving their small apartment after they have argued: each of them seen through separate doorways, separated by a wall and rigid, unyielding lines. Great stuff.

The story gets under the skin of these two more than it does returning Korean War veteran Ford. His Jeff Warren is something of an ambiguous character for much of the film. He has a hot young woman after him, and yet he goes for the less alluring – and ostensibly unavailable – Vicki. But then I suppose it is this that is at the core of the story: the overwhelming intensity and perverse randomness of human desire.