Fritz Lang was well on the way toward losing his magic touch with grim film noir by the time he did HUMAN DESIRE, from an Emile Zola novel and better made originally with Jean Gabin and Simone Simon. His Hollywood phase included such disappointments as WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS and BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT, both highly flawed from a directorial standpoint.
Here he has the screen's sauciest femme fatale, GLORIA GRAHAME, using her sultry demeanor to lure All-American hero GLENN FORD into committing a murder to dispose of her obnoxious, insanely jealous husband BRODERICK CRAWFORD.
The plot is driven by Crawford's brutal killing of his wife's ex-boss whom he suspects of dallying with her. Grahame is forced to be an accessory in robbery and murder. Crawford holds onto an incriminating letter he forced his wife to write. Train engineer Ford gets caught up in the plot when he accidentally runs into Grahame on the train where the murder took place.
Ford seems much too level-headed to get caught up in Grahame's plight the way he does. The story reaches a climax after Ford finds out the truth about Grahame's involvement in the murder. The sub-plot concerning a nice girl with a yen for Ford is completely uninvolving and the story holds interest only as long as the focus in the last twenty minutes is on Ford and Grahame. When Gloria says: "If only something would happen to him in the yards," you know there's a plot device coming--one that assures her status as a femme fatale.
Despite a fairly gripping story, the ending is not satisfying enough--but there are enough noir elements in the film to make it absorbing and worthwhile.
Here he has the screen's sauciest femme fatale, GLORIA GRAHAME, using her sultry demeanor to lure All-American hero GLENN FORD into committing a murder to dispose of her obnoxious, insanely jealous husband BRODERICK CRAWFORD.
The plot is driven by Crawford's brutal killing of his wife's ex-boss whom he suspects of dallying with her. Grahame is forced to be an accessory in robbery and murder. Crawford holds onto an incriminating letter he forced his wife to write. Train engineer Ford gets caught up in the plot when he accidentally runs into Grahame on the train where the murder took place.
Ford seems much too level-headed to get caught up in Grahame's plight the way he does. The story reaches a climax after Ford finds out the truth about Grahame's involvement in the murder. The sub-plot concerning a nice girl with a yen for Ford is completely uninvolving and the story holds interest only as long as the focus in the last twenty minutes is on Ford and Grahame. When Gloria says: "If only something would happen to him in the yards," you know there's a plot device coming--one that assures her status as a femme fatale.
Despite a fairly gripping story, the ending is not satisfying enough--but there are enough noir elements in the film to make it absorbing and worthwhile.