Noir City: Human Desire
February 22, 2024
Reteamed with Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame gives a bruised and beleaguered performance as the abused woman who wonders if murdering her loutish husband (Broderick Crawford) is the only way out of her domestic hell. DP Burnett Guffey adds noir panache to Lang’s cruel and suffocating depiction of the eternal noir triangle.
A Columbia Pictures' 100th Anniversary film.
Individual Tickets: $16 | $11 SIFF Members - Select showtime to purchase
Passes: $150 | $125 SIFF Members
SIFF year-round passes and vouchers are not valid for this screening.
Following the popular success of 1953’s The Big Heat, Columbia Pictures reteamed costars Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame with director Fritz Lang for this Americanized adaptation of Zola’s La bẻte humaine. Writer Alfred Hayes (My Face for the World to See) was assigned the task of getting the sordid tale of adultery and murder past Production Code censors, while ensuring that the war veteran played by Ford would be nowhere near as dark and disturbing as Jean Gabin in Renoir’s 1938 version of the same tale. Producer Wald “solved” the problem by advising Hayes to “just blame the woman.” Gloria Grahame gives a bruised and beleaguered performance as the abused Vicki, who wonders if murdering her loutish husband (Broderick Crawford) is the only way out of her domestic hell. DP Burnett Guffey supplies noir panache to Lang’s cruel and suffocating depiction of the eternal noir triangle. —Film synopsis courtesy of Noir City
- Director: Fritz Lang
- Principal Cast: Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Broderick Crawford, Edgar Buchanan, Kathleen Case
- Country: USA
- Year: 1954
- Running Time: 91 min.
- Producer: Lewis J. Rachmil, Jerry Wald
- Screenplay: Alfred Hayes
- Cinematographers: Burnett Guffey
- Editors: Aaron Stell
- Music: Daniele Amfitheatrof
- Filmography: Scarlet Street (1945), M (1931), Metropolis (1927
- Language: English