Rent Human Desire (1954)

Signals Crossed on the Night Train - Human Desire review by griggs

I keep thinking of Human Desire as a film noir in a toxic relationship with a melodrama. On paper it’s Zola via Renoir, but Lang sands off some of La Bête Humaine’s madness and leaves something softer and more domestic, tidier psychologically. I was curious, but never quite gripped, for the first hour.

For most of the film Ford and Grahame feel oddly muted, like big stars parked in a story that hasn’t decided what to do with them. It’s only in the third act that they finally spark: Ford’s quiet, depressive railway man suddenly feels like a person rather than a type, and Grahame’s trapped wife becomes properly, thrillingly opaque. Broderick Crawford is a convincingly pathetic brute throughout, lumbering around with the threat of violence hanging off him.

The train sequences are the real draw — long, hypnotic runs of steel and motion — but the finale ducks the novel’s nihilism, so well captured in La Bête Humaine, without finding a sharper alternative. Flawed and frustrating, yet it lingers more than you’d think.

Decent - Human Desire review by LC

A solid film noir thriller, though the resolution feels very rushed and not particularly satisfying.

Bit of a let down - Human Desire review by sb

FILM & REVIEW Fritz Lang’s slightly creaky melodrama has Ford as Warren a train driver back from Korea and back into his old job. One of his railway buddies who was also in Korea is Carl (Crawford) who drinks and is married to the much younger Vikki (Graham). He loses his job after a fight with his boss but gets Vikki to approach Owens who is a bigwig in the railways and she know before their marriage. She spends an entire afternoon with Owens and gets Carl his job back but he gets get to reveal quite what she had to do to secure this and flies into a jealous rage. He gets Vikki to write to Owens to meet on a train and stabs him making it look like a robbery and has the note she wrote tying her to him - and becomes ever drunker and jealous and beats her. She sees Warren as the way out of her predicament but tells so many lies even she can’t remember what she said and he begins to suspect he is being played. Based on a Emile Zola novel Graham is very good as the femme fatale manipulating others around her but Ford who is normally so good seems bemused by the whole affair and final third just peters out……bit of a shame - 3/5