Human Desire (The Human Beast) (1954)

Human Desire

“A reunion of director Fritz Lang and stars Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame after the previous year’s successful noir masterpiece, The Big Heat, but this one can’t help but feel a bit like a cooldown. There’s plenty of style to burn and a delicious pair of performances to thrill as often as they repel, but something about Human Desire just isn’t quite as compelling. It might have something to do with the wind dissipating from the sails before the final credits roll.   Maybe a better descriptor would be that the train runs out of steam before reaching the station as much Human Desire concerns railway workers. Based upon Emile Zola’s novel La bête humaine, Lang’s film is too stodgy for noir and too mean for literary adaptations occupying a fascinating netherworld where Grahame ” read more

Gloria Grahame Best Movies (19 person items)

" Gloria Grahame and Glenn Ford "

PopMatter's Essential Film Performances - 2010 (50 movies items)

"FROM PAGE TO SCREEN Gloria Grahame The key to Grahame’s performance in Lang’s Human Desire, and really, to the film itself, resides in her ability to keep us just on the edge of sympathy for her mysterious, possibly victimized, possibly devious housewife Vicki Buckley all while letting on that we, much like all of the men unfortunate enough to cross paths with her, should never quite trust her. When we see Glenn Ford’s characteristically decent Korean War veteran Jeff Warren becoming ensna"