Review of Human Desire (1954) by Alexandre R — 06 Jan 2009

Fritz Lang, the most ingenious directors of film noir, realizes this little work of outstanding genre superiority with a sinister and absorbing panache. Cinematographer Burnett Guffey is unyielding in depicting the spiritual isolation of the characters. Lang punctuates the dramatic action with Guffey's threatening shots of the many railroad tracks interlacing and breaking away. He needs not brandish any certainty of intention for them to act as metaphor for the characters' paths tying themselves in knots. Lang had the old-fashioned cinematic touch that could remain hidden as a more effective means of showcasing a distinctive style. Insightful and intense, Human Desire is a distressing parable on the subject of the shadows of human rationale and the distortion of the heart, and of desperate characters who lead disappointed lives.

Hard-drinking Carl Buckley is a freshly fired railroad worker. His alluring wife visits a railroad executive in an attempt to get his job back. When Buckley imagines that she has done more than just talk with the official, which if I were visited by Gloria Grahame would have been a totally righteous suspicion, he initially cruelly thrashes her then hunts down the railroad man and ultimately kills him in a jealous rage. Train conductor and Korean War vet Glenn Ford then gets himself mixed up in it all. And from there, we have yet another of Fritz's all too real dilemmas, and yet another one of those between Ford and Grahame, one that about matches the mastery and vast entertainment of their companion piece together, The Big Heat.

In the face of the cruelty and ruthlessness in getting what they want, regardless of how far they unravel each other's darkest colors, in spite of the scorpion-like sidestepping around their flirtatious relationship, the two lead characters remain sympathetic in their own respective ways, though one is in some sense a champion and the other is an adversary. Accordingly, Human Desire is a boldly familiarizing study of the sense of right and wrong, achieving its shadowy effect by aiming for your heart and loins rather than only your cerebrum.