Human Desire
Encyclopedia
Human Desire 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 filmed twice before: La Bête humaine
(1938
) directed by Jean Renoir
and Die Bestie im Menschen (1920
).
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."
Black-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...
film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
directed by Fritz Lang
Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
, and based on the novel La Bête humaine
La Bête humaine
La Bête Humaine is an 1890 novel by Émile Zola. The story has been adapted for the cinema on several occasions. It is based around the railway between Paris and Le Havre in the 19th century and is a tense, psychological thriller....
by Émile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
. The story was filmed twice before: La Bête humaine
La Bête Humaine (film)
La Bête Humaine is a film directed by Jean Renoir, with cinematography by Curt Courant...
(1938
1938 in film
The year 1938 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*January — MGM announces that Judy Garland would be cast in the role of "Dorothy" in the upcoming Wizard of Oz motion picture. Ray Bolger is cast as the "Tinman" and Buddy Ebsen is cast as the "Scarecrow". At Bolger's insistence,...
) directed by Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s...
and Die Bestie im Menschen (1920
1920 in film
The year 1920 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* November 27 - The Mark of Zorro, starring Douglas Fairbanks opens.-Top grossing films :-Films released in 1920:U.S.A. unless stated*The $1,000,000 Reward...
).
Plot
Railroad supervisor Carl Buckley gets fired from his job. He persuades his seductive wife to pay a visit to an important railroad customer in order to try to get his job back. When Buckley suspects that his sexy, younger wife Vicki (Grahame) has done more than just talk with the rich old magnate, he smacks her around. He then jealously stalks his rival, finally stabbing him to death in a train compartment. Locomotive engineer and Korean War vet, Jeff Warren (Ford) observed Vicki in the vicinity of the murder, but shields her at the inquest, as she sets his pulse racing. The two begin an affair which is hard to keep quiet in such a small town. Vicki then starts scheming for Warren to kill her increasingly drunk and violent husband.Cast
- Glenn FordGlenn FordGlenn Ford was a Canadian-born American actor from Hollywood's Golden Era with a career that spanned seven decades...
as Jeff Warren - Gloria GrahameGloria GrahameGloria Grahame was an American Academy Award–winning actress.Grahame began her acting career in theatre, and in 1944 she made her first film for MGM. Despite a featured role in It's a Wonderful Life , MGM did not believe she had the potential for major success, and sold her contract to RKO Studios...
as Vicki Buckley - Broderick CrawfordBroderick CrawfordBroderick Crawford was an Academy Award-winning American stage, film, radio and TV actor, often cast in tough-guy roles and best known for his starring role in the television series "Highway Patrol."-Early life:...
as Carl Buckley - Edgar BuchananEdgar BuchananEdgar Buchanan was an American actor with a long career in both film and television, most familiar today as Uncle Joe Carson from the Petticoat Junction, Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies television sitcoms of the 1960s...
as Alec Simmons - Kathleen Case as Ellen Simmons
- Peggy MaleyPeggy MaleyPeggy Maley is an actress who appeared in numerous movies and television programs. In 1942 she was crowned Miss Atlantic City. She delivered the famous feeder line to Marlon Brando in the film The Wild One: "Hey, Johnny, what are you rebelling against?".-External links:*...
as Jean - Diane DeLaire as Vera Simmons
- Grandon Rhodes as John Owens
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."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."