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Highly Overrated But Still Good

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The notable Fritz Lang directs this hard-boiled film noir. Lots of railroad footage, passionate acting and a murder in desperation. A Korean War veteran, Jeff Warren(Glenn Ford)returns to his railroad engineer job. Wanting really nothing more, but a quiet life is not in store. Warren meets Vicki Buckley(Gloria Graham)and enters a passionate affair after reluctantly helping her bullish, combustible husband(Broderick Crawford)get away with murder. Vicki is so fed up with her abusive husband, who is Jeff's foreman, that she convincingly dupes her new lover into plotting her spouse's demise.Based on a novel by Emile Zola, HUMAN DESIRE is not full of frills and fancy; just Black & White two-timing homicide. Ford is an everyday man. Graham is alluring in a slutty way. Crawford seems a natural at being pig-headed and gruff. In support: Edgar Buchanan, Peggy Maley, Paul Brineger and Kathleen Case.

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.

In this adaptation of Zola's "La Bete Humaine," a railroad engineer becomes involved in a love triangle and murder. Ford and Crawford are fine as the men vying for Grahame's attention. The latter, however, is strangely wooden as the femme fatale, a bad girl role she would seem to be ideally cast for. Lang creates an appropriately noirish atmosphere and keeps things interesting despite the relaxed pace. There are a number of leisurely, dialog-free shots of trains rumbling along the tracks, suggesting something sinister is about to happen. This is a worthy addition to the series of solid dramas Lang made starting with "The Woman in the Window" in 1944.

This feature was made near the end of Lang's career in America, and it appears the longer he stayed, the less inspired he got. In my book, no amount of train track symbolism can compensate for such generally lackluster results, given the story potential. Ten years earlier, Lang proved his way with wanton women and driven men in the sublime Scarlet Street (1945). Here, however, with similar ingredients, the mix never gels into anything more memorable than a programmer, leaving us instead with bits and pieces of what might have been.Now, Glenn Ford proved he could do interestingly ambivalent characters as in The Big Heat (1953). Nonetheless, his working stiff Jeff Warren is just that—too stiff to be convincing as the wayward fall guy for Vicki's dark scheme. As an actor, Ford always understated, but here the low-key is carried to a fault, creating a basically dull and uninteresting character. It also doesn't help that his character is rather poorly written, as other reviewers have pointed out. Then there's Crawford, who had generally one single screen persona—a loudmouth boor. As a killer, he's fine; as a guy that even the needy Vicki might settle for, he's an unlikely stretch. That leaves the pouty-lipped vamping of Grahame's Vicki to carry the drama, which she does in a part I expect she could do in her sleep.At the same time, compare the visual styling here with that of the earlier Scarlet Street. The latter shows genuine expressionist artistry with light and shadow. This "noir", by contrast, comes across as one of the dullest grays on record. You know a noir is in trouble when the most interesting visuals are Canadian train tracks. Then too, I expect the cultural climate of the McCarthy year 1953 worked against both the script and Lang. As a result, we get the "good girl" (Ellen) subplot that dangles like a loose appendage. Its purpose, I suppose, is to provide a wholesome contrast to bad girl Vicki. The effect, however, is that of a weakening distraction. At the same time, the narrative could have used at least two revealing sex scenes. Some such would have brought out the vulnerable side of both Jeff and Carl, making their characters more interesting and their actions more believable. But, the period's paralyzing Production Code makes sure that we get nothing more than pallid hints of the real human desire that drives these characters to their doom.I haven't seen the Renoir original. But even within the Lang catalogue, the film's a disappointment. Given his career trajectory in America, it's hardly surprising that he chose to end film-making back in his native Germany.