"Human Desire" Review

 

by Daniel White

Fritz Lang's Human Desire (1954) starts off with an exciting urgency: pulsating music plays as a POV shot of a train traveling speedily along its tracks appears before us. Next we see the two conductors, Glenn Ford and Edgar Buchanan, at the throttle, relaxed, running the locomotive, while silently communicating with one another.

Lang and screenwriter Alfred Hayes waste little time in setting up the story. Jeff Warren (Ford), a veteran, newly returned from the Korean War, has returned to his old job as an engineer for the Central National railroad. His first day back in town, he takes up his former residence with Alec Simmons (Buchanan), his co-worker and friend. A warm, welcoming home that includes Alec's wife and grown daughter, Ellen (the beautiful Kathleen Case), who has an obvious crush on Jeff.

In complete contrast with the love that is palpable in Warren's adopted family, the next scene is set in assistant yard master Carl Buckley's house. Buckley (Broderick Crawford), hard drinking and combative, is consumed with jealousy for his younger wife Vicki (the always watchable Gloria Grahame).

Contrasts, wrong decisions, fatal choices, like the diverging train tracks witnessed at the beginning, that's what Human Desire is all about. It isn't long before Buckley's rabid possessiveness of Vicki leads to a murder that soon draws Jeff into their lurid, noxious world.

I love Gloria Grahame and she's at her best when playing bad. As Vicki, she is victim as much as victimizer, a sexy, seductive dame, who has been abused. Broderick Crawford is okay as Buckley but doesn't achieve greatness in the role. He seems a bit unsure of himself; distracted. And his switch from beast to bumbling booze-hound feels a bit forced.

The underrated Glenn Ford gives the best performance of the three as the wary Jeff who is not as pliable as the scheming Vicki hopes he will be. Ford is such a good actor that he makes it look too easy, which is probably why he was never nominated for an Oscar. The Academy likes its actors to sweat for that golden statue. If they don't draw some blood for their craft and noisily emote, they can't be doing it right. Like fellow non-winner Cary Grant, Glenn Ford makes it look too damn effortless, therefore he can't really be "acting."

Produced by Columbia, and loosely based on the Emile Zola novel, La Bete Humaine, Human Desire starts off with a bang but is unable to sustain the brilliance of its first few minutes. However, it's still a very good movie, a compelling film noir about the choices a man makes and the consequences that result.

With an exciting musical score by Daniele Amfitheatrof, and some sexy wardrobe designs by Jean Louis for Gloria Grahame (including a belted trenchcoat with matching beret that she works like nobody's business!), Human Desire is available on YouTube.