Human Desire (1954) User Reviews

Back on the tracks – not really a Renoir remake

[manuel-pestalozzi · 8/10 · 3 August 2007]

It is interesting to compare Jean Renoir's La bête humaine (1938) with Human Desire as they both are based on the same novel by French literature heavyweight Emile Zola. Whereas in Renoir's movie the train and its engineer seem to be wild beasts which have to be kept under control by tight regulations, Lang's engineer is a regular guy who has returned from the Korean war and just yearns to be back on the tracks again. He clearly wants order, regularity and predictability in his life, the very things which seem to destroy the Broderick Crawford character who appears to be the real beast in Human Desire. His counterpart in the Renoir movie is an authority figure in the railroad system who more than anything else wants to keep up a front of respectability.

Gloria Grahame's character is less a femme fatale, like cocky Simone Simon in La bête humaine, than a true victim who has suffered on the hands of different men. She really looks exhausted and seems to have given up on life. In the vain hope that war experience has awakened the beast in the train engineer, she succeeds in rousing some passion in him, but it is not enough for his murdering her husband (who really is a bad character for whom it is hard to feel any pity). The final scene very much looks like her executing a carefully planned suicide-scheme which also definitely brings down her evil husband.

Both movies show that the layer of civilization is pretty thin. Lang's Human Desire distinguishes itself for being a careful probe into the social conditions of the USA in the first part of the 1950ies which is also evident in the careful set design. On several occasions the engineer talks about his war experiences which led him to have new esteem for the merits of order and civilization. It is an important item in Human Desire. Up to you to decide if this makes it a pro or an anti war movie.

You never knew me.

[hitchcockthelegend · 8/10 · 4 April 2011]

Human Desire is directed by Fritz Lang and adapted for the screen by Alfred Hayes from the story "The Human Beast" written by Émile Zola. It stars Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame and Broderick Crawford. Music is by Daniele Amfitheatrof and Burnett Guffey is the cinematographer. The story had been filmed twice before, as Die Bestie im Menschen in 1920 and La Bête humaine in 1938.

The plot revolves around a love triangle axis involving Jeff Warren (Ford), Vicki Buckley (Grahame) and Carl Buckley (Crawford). Crawford's Railroad Marshall gets fired and asks his wife, Viki, to sweet talk one of the yards main investors, John Owens (Grandon Rhodes), into pressuring his yard boss into giving him his job back. But there is a history there, and Carl is beset with jealousy when Viki is away for far too long. It's his jealousy that will start the downward spiral of events that will change their lives forever, with Jeff firmly in the middle of the storm.

The Production Code of the time ensured that Fritz Lang's take on the Zola novel would be considerably toned down. Thus some of the sex and violence aspects in the narrative give way to suggestion or aftermath. However, for although it may not be in the top tier of Lang's works, it's still an involving and intriguing picture seeping with film noir attributes. It features a couple of wretched characters living a bleak existence, what hope there is is in short supply and pleasures are futile, stymied by jealousy and murder. Thrust in to the middle of such hopelessness is the bastion of good and pure honesty, Jeff Warren, fresh from serving his country in the Korean War. Lusted after by the sweet daughter of his friend and landlord (Kathleen Case and Edgar Buchanan respectively), Jeff, back in employment at the rail yard, has it all going for him. But as the title suggests, human beings are at times at the mercy of their desires, and it's here where Lang enjoys pitting his three main characters against their respective fates. All set to the backdrop of a cold rail yard and the trains that work out of that steely working class place (Guffey's photography in sync with desolation of location and the characters collision course of fate).

Featuring two of the principal cast from The Big Heat (1953), it's a very well casted picture. Grahame is a revelation as the amoral wife stung by unfulfillment, sleazy yet sexy, Grahame makes Vicki both alluring and sympathetic. Lang had wanted Rita Hayworth for the role, but a child custody case prevented her from leaving the country (much of the film was shot in Canada), so in came Grahame and film noir got another classic femme fatale. Ford could play an everyman in his sleep, so this was an easy role for him to fill, but that's taking nothing away from the quality of his performance, because he's the cooling glue holding the film together. Crawford offers up another in his line of hulking brutes, with this one pitiful as he has anger issues take a hold, his original crime being only that he wants to desperately please his uncaring wife. Strong support comes from Buchanan, Case and Diane DeLaire.

Adultery, jealousy, murder and passion dwells within Human Desire, a highly accomplished piece of film noir from the gifted Fritz Lang. 7.5/10

desire trumps reality

[RanchoTuVu · 8/10 · 3 April 2008]

Broderick Crawford and Gloria Grahme make an interesting couple as the two of them unravel in yet another boozy black and white (but mostly drab grey) plot of murder, betrayal, and blackmail, this time on a train as well as in a railroad yard, with Glenn Ford in the middle, coming back to his job as an engineer after fighting in the Korean War. It makes for a cozy and claustrophobic setting. While the lines that they say seem a bit unconvincing, their situations and personalities are what make this a memorable film. Crawford is especially impressive as a hulking railroad office employee with a vicious temper and jealousy for his younger wife. The plot has some inescapable holes in it, but the drama and tension build fairly well, first because of his tortuous marriage with Grahme which seems to go with the film's title, as the marriage is a sham that represents another unattainable desire for him. He carries the part off all the way to end.

Lang's gloomy remake of Renoir's "La bete humaine"

[Kalaman · 4 May 2003]

"Human Desire" is NOT one of Fritz Lang's masterpieces. Though it has its moments, it ultimately comes off as a second-rate work. A remake of Jean Renoir's 1938 "La bete Humaine" starring Jean Gabin, "Human Desire" is less successful than Renoir's adaptation of the Zola novel, but when all things considered, it is not bad, and is filled with some interesting geometric images & visuals. The film turns out to be gloomy, often bleak melodrama that has a striking affinity with Billy Wilder's "Double Indemnity" in its plot, dealing with a married woman (Gloria Grahame) trying to get rid of her bland husband (Broderick Crawford) through the help of a train engineer (Glenn Ford). If you stop concentrating on the melodramatic plot and focus on Lang's lovely architectural compositions, "Human Desire" becomes quite engrossing picture, on par with "The Big Heat", Lang's previous film noir with Grahame & Ford. From the first image to the last, the scenes of railroad tracks are masterfully handled: we see a series of precise lines and converging tracks moving forward. Moreover, Grahame and Crawford's rooms in their working class house are characterized by a series of squares, boxes, rectangles to conjure up a nightmarish vision of fate and destiny.

Also, it is worth noting that in the same house we see the appearance of television for the first time in Lang's films. Lang will later explore the dangers of media manipulation in his last two American films: "While the City Sleeps" and "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt".

A railroad worker falls for a married woman

[blanche-2 · 7/10 · 27 January 2007]

Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, and Broderick Crawford deal with "Human Desire" a 1954 film directed by Fritz Lang and based on Emile Zola's "La Bete Humaine." Fresh from Korea, Jeff Warren (Ford) is a railroad engineer currently staying with his friend (Edgar Buchanan) and his family, one of whom is a young woman interested in Jeff. And no wonder - remember, this is Glenn Ford. One of the railroad bosses, Carl Buckley (Crawford) loses his job in a fit of temper and asks his wife Vicki (Grahame) to appeal to a wealthy and powerful family friend to help him get his job back. Well, she does, but when she returns successful many hours later and wants to hit the shower, it doesn't take much to figure out just how she accomplished this feat. Blind with anger, Buckley makes her write a letter saying she will meet the man in his train compartment. Buckley kills him there and keeps the letter to hold over Vicki.

As she was seen near the murder compartment, Vicki flirts with Ford to keep her out of the investigation and eventually they become involved. That's when Vicki starts hinting around that she needs the letter found and her husband dead - not necessarily in that order.

Not being familiar with the source material, I can't comment on this film as well as some others here. The postwar era was not Lang's strongest; he seems to have fallen out of favor and not getting the budgets or the scripts he once did. That being said, this is a very absorbing noir with Gloria Grahame being completely hateful and Ford being Mr. Nice Guy who is in this woman's clutches. Crawford's character is an odd one; he's presented as a good guy and then suddenly he goes off and becomes a total madman.

What makes this film is the sexual tension between Ford and Grahame. Ford was a wonderful movie star but with a limited range. What he had going for him beside good looks was major sex appeal, and while Grahame burns, he smolders. They make a hot team.

Perhaps the story and characters could have been fleshed out more; as it is, it's entertaining with good directing, acting, and some interesting shots. Great for noir fans.

The Destructive Power Of Unbridled Passions

[seymourblack-1 · 7/10 · 1 October 2010]

Fritz Lang's "Human Desire" is based on Emile Zola's novel "La Bete Humaine" which had previously been made into a movie directed by Jean Renoir in 1938. For Lang's version, the time frame was changed to the 1950s, the action was relocated to the United States and some modifications were made to satisfy the requirements of studio bosses and the production code. What remains however, is still a very powerful and grim tale about a couple who are driven by their most base instincts into acts of deceit, blackmail, adultery and murder. These people are not only unencumbered by any type of moral code but also, by their actions, have a corrupting effect on a more passive character who is also a mutual acquaintance.

Railroad official Carl Buckley (Broderick Crawford) is fired from his job for insubordination and begs his wife Vicki (Gloria Grahame) to approach her mother's former employer, the influential John Owens (Grandon Rhodes), to get him to persuade Carl's ex-employer to change his mind and re-employ him. After Vicki completes her mission quickly and successfully, Carl becomes suspicious about the method she'd used to induce Owens to cooperate so readily and in a fit of jealousy and rage beats her and forces her to write a letter to Owens. The letter is an invitation for Owens to meet Vicki on a train at an arranged time on the following day.

Owens and Vicki meet as arranged but Carl who'd accompanied Vicki uses his knife to kill Owens and removes Vicki's letter from his victim's pocket and steals his money to make it appear that the murder was connected with a robbery. Railroad engineer Jeff Warren (Glenn Ford) is standing in the train corridor when the couple want to leave Owens' compartment and so Carl tells Vicki to encourage Jeff away from the area which she duly does. Jeff and Vicki go into another compartment and talk but when he kisses her, she runs away.

At the inquest into Owens' death, Jeff doesn't admit that he'd seen Vicki near the crime scene and when he sees her next, she tells him a fabricated version of what happened on the train and also about her husband's abusive behaviour towards her. She shows Jeff some of her bruises and shortly after they embark on an affair.

Some time later, Vicki tells Jeff the truth about the murder, the incriminating content of her letter to Owens and the fact that Carl had kept the letter to ensure her future cooperation. However, when Carl gets fired from his job for the second time, Vicki says that she's terrified about his reaction if he discovers the truth about her affair and tries to persuade Jeff to murder her husband. What Jeff ultimately does has a critical effect on both their futures.

Carl's volatile nature had been the original cause of him losing his job and his subsequent irrational outbursts of violence and jealousy then led him into wife beating, blackmail and murder and his drunkenness and apparent lack of remorse made his relationship with Vicki even more toxic. Broderick Crawford is impressively powerful and menacing as the brutish Carl whose actions are determined by the destructive force of his unbridled passions.

Vicki is a victim of Carl's behaviour but is also manipulative, mendacious and totally unscrupulous. Gloria Grahame captures perfectly her character's devious nature and changing moods as well as her unashamed willingness to be involved in a plan to murder her husband.

Jeff had returned from military service in Korea and in the movie's earliest scenes shows the natural type of contentment he enjoys as a passive man whose aspirations are modest. Glenn Ford then shows as the action continues, how Jeff's demeanour alters as he becomes morally compromised enough to withhold information from the murder inquest before getting involved in an affair with the untrustworthy Vicki and then taking part in a plot to kill her husband.

"Human Desire" is ultimately an engaging and sordid story about people who act without reason, logic or compassion and in the process, corrupt or inflict misery on, those with whom they come into contact.

Imitation Renoir

[st-shot · 6/10 · 30 October 2020]

Fritz Lang once again raids Jean Renoir's filmography in a remake of La Bete Humaine (38). Unlike the comparable Scarlett St. to Renoir's La Chienne, Human Desire is a far inferior copy this time around.

Jeff Warren (Glenn Ford) returns from the Korean War to his old job as a rail road engineer and the desire to go fishing when he wants to. He gets involved with a co-worker's (Broderick Crawford) wife (Gloria Grahame) after providing an alibi for the pair involving a murder. When the husband blackmails the wife with evidence that will implicate her she tries to coax Jeff to off him.

Lang's direction is limp as he gets a dull performance out of Ford and a sloppy one from Crawford. Grahame easily steals the show as the duplicitous infidel trying to manipulate the men. She's cold and calculating but also a victim forced to commit a criminal act.

Comparison to the original would be piling on but it is worth noting Jean Gabin drove the train on occasion and more importantly a locomotive with more moving parts and character than Ford's streamlined diesel. Better to go with the original.

One Jealous Husband + One Dangerous Woman + One Willing Admirer = Trouble

[movingpicturegal · 9/10 · 22 January 2007]

Well-done film noir about a railroad engineer, Jeff Warren (Glenn Ford), who gets mixed up with a beautiful femme fatale (Gloria Grahame) who comes complete with husband who has murdered a man in a train car in an act of jealousy - and happens to be one of Warren's co-workers. Meeting her on the train just after the murder, kissing her within moments of meeting, it seemed like, our railroad man is soon embroiled in a love affair with this woman, who can't break away from her husband as he is holding a piece of blackmail over her head involving the murder.

This film is quite a good one, boosted up considerably by the great performance given by Gloria Grahame, who brings a sad vulnerability to her character and really makes this film. Broderick Crawford is also very good, as the angry, murderous husband and Glenn Ford comes across as the handsome, strong, quiet type which completely suits his part - well done acting all around for this. This film also features interesting photography and lighting typical of this style of film - I especially like the way the train scenes are shot, with the camera strapped to the front of the train, giving a first-person ride along the railroad tracks. A gripping film with a plot that kept me interested from beginning to end.

Human Desire? or Male Lust

[jcappy · 6/10 · 12 January 2021]

Forget the literary source of Lang's "Human Desire:" what's on the screen is the movie made, the movie seen, and the movie grasped. And what's in front of the viewer here is a failure of character/plot. I don't know how anyone can walk away from this film without a strong impetus to strangle the director for having failed an otherwise effective production.

While siding with Vicki Buckley's (Grahame) lifelong, victimizing, ordeal throughout the film, which directly entails her battering husband (Crawford) and her somewhat covetous rescuer, Jeff Warren (Ford), Fritz Lang, in his story's final minutes, treacherously switches his alliance to his two leading men. His lust test flipped off, his men are now free, one to murder his battered wife, the other to marry his homespun prom gal about 20 years his younger.

The plot should have been rolled back to the moment that Jeff Warren passed the murderer (with his wife) in the night. He notices something askew and there's this briefest glance of suspicion and sympathy. But that moment is erased from Warren's consciousness and from the plot, which stays on track. What if Warren, instead, started investigating on his own, moved by a growing sympathy for the wife and her plight, and that he began to see her for herself and not as primarily sexually compelling--or more accurately, an embodiment of his own desire. He could have put Carl and his ilk on the hot seat, snapped his own fraudulent bond with him, drew in the law, freed Vicki for the first time in her life from the grasping paws of men, and returned to his own life on the railroad with a cleaner and clearer outlook rather than with that final simpering grin.

Would this plot have broken some production code, some film noir stipulation for a femme fatal over a femme veritas? Absolutely not, and the film would have been true to its initial impulses, and initial characterizations. Instead, we got the botched job, which satisfied no one except (perhaps) a few misogynists, and infuriated many.

Lang reunites Grahame, Ford for dark, smouldering Zola update

[bmacv · 9/10 · 8 May 2001]

Fresh from their exertions in Fritz Lang's superheated The Big Heat, Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame (joined by Broderick Crawford) reunite for the director's recension of Zola's La Bete Humaine. This time, the heat is not so explosive, but this film's dense, acrid smokes smoulders away to the point of choking claustrophobia. Like Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, the film opens with us criss-crossing a maze of railroad tracks, and the locomotives, cars and switching yards are never far away in this tale of abuse, frustration, adultery and homicides (plural) somewhere out in the prairie heartland. Grahame, when bad, is always good, but she's never been badder or better than here, as the young wife of the violently jealous Broderick Crawford. Glenn Ford, just mustered out of Korea, gets his brakeman's job back and chugs right into the middle of this marital discord. Lang tightens the screws slowly and expertly for the full 90 minutes of this midwestern nightmare (the final words of which, unspoken, are: "Trenton makes, the world takes," read backwards on a railway trestle). This is a canonical work of film noir, left -- like too many others -- in unviewed obscurity. It's every bit the equal of The Big Heat or Scarlet Street.

Slightly disappointing

[guy-bellinger · 7/10 · 17 September 2004]

Despite Lang's signature, I must admit I have been a bit let down. I say "a bit" because "Human Desire" is not a bad film in itself. Simply, it somewhat pales beside its admirable model, Jean Renoir's "La Bête humaine".

Here are a few shortcomings ( which will appear so only if we have seen the two versions ) : -To begin with, why this happy end, at least concerning Warren ( Lantier's American counterpart) ? It is downright unfaithful both to Zola's naturalism and Renoir's "poetic determinism". - More in keeping with the source material it was a commendable idea to make Warren a Korea War veteran ( war CAN unsettle individuals) but the character basically remains an all-American good guy erring a little.And if to err is "human" then it doesn't at all make the character a "human beast". - Glenn Ford's interpretation is undistiguished compared to Jean Gabin's formidable presence in the former film. - Something equally amazing is choosing usually picturesque Edgar Buchanan to replace Carette and give him nothing to do ! No one can forget Carette's gift of the gab and drawling accent hiding a deep feeling of helpless sympathy. Whoever will remember Edgar Buchanan in this dull part ? [ sigh of helpless sympathy ! ]

There are good points, however, in this film, notably the convincing portrayal of the "cursed couple" by always reliable Gloria Grahame and Broderick Crawford as well as the opening sequences of tracks,switches, metallic bridges... with no other sounds than the clanking of wheels ,conjuring up ( this time like in Renoir's "Human Beast" )the inexorable progress of fate.

On the whole I didn't really dislike "Human Desire" but I found it less atmospheric, more matter of fact than the original. In other words, I wish I hadn't seen "La Bête humaine"...yet.

a curious, sensual and dark tale of murder and lust - a fine (if not definitive) example of 'noir'

[Quinoa1984 · 9/10 · 4 February 2011]

Film noir is a mood, a state of mind in a film world. It doesn't just have to be guys with guns, nor is it just infidelity and murder. But it usually rests on dark streets and in rooms with the lights off, with sultry women, average Joes and Big Heavys who are the bane of any person's existence, and sometimes it's just based on the narration, the setting, the way a character stares at one another or holds on a kiss. Human Desire, Fritz Lang's update of Emile Zola's book La bete Humaine (and also made into the wonderful film of the same name by Jean Renoir, a kind of pre-noir example in the 30's), is drenched in noir, and it's a wonderful example of what could be done with the right actors - or seemingly the right ones all the way through - and the right setting.

It's set among workers on trains, as an engineer, Jeff, played by Glenn Ford, comes back from Korea and is back a work, a nice but quiet type usually, and also works with Broderick Crawford's Carl. Carl is a big louse of a man, jealous as hell of his wife but contradictory in that he asks him to do a 'favor' in order to get his job back from his wife. She goes to see this boss-man, but Crawford ain't havin' it: he goes ahead and kills the guy on a train, and Glenn Ford's character suspects something, having seen Vicki come out of the same car. But he also kinda, sorta, falls for her, if only by a sudden kiss moment, and she tries to egg him on to 'get rid' of Carl, who has become a total drunk and waste after killing a man. Some guys just can't take it, but can Jeff go that far? And for a dame?

Sounds like a book title (matter of fact it was at some point), but it's how Lang presents these characters, in shadows and among the grime of the trains and tracks, and those dark rooms, that make things interesting. It's also good that there's a side character here, Ellen, played by Kathleen Case, as a way of giving some pause from the main plot (she's a younger woman who takes a fancy to Jeff as he comes back from the East and has a kimono for her). Lang makes us wonder: is this dame Vicki Jeff's only choice? Hopefully not, but the dilemma makes for some great chemistry for the two actors, and the tension is ratcheted up as Jeff has to ponder taking the next step for Vicki, or to not, as Carl isn't a stranger to him and this isn't fighting in a war.

Ford is fine in the role he's in, and Crawford gets to ham it up with his drunken a-hole of a husband who occasionally shows signs of regret (he's not all black-and-white morally, but as in noir has shades of grays). But with Grahame I wasn't totally sure about her performance, at least at first. She's playing something different than her previous Lang role in The Big Heat where she was just a full-on moll. Here she's a housewife, but one with a checkered past we don't know of entirely till near the final reel. She acts a little duplicitous, but I wasn't always believing her acting even if she looked the part of a femme fatale. It's a strange thing since she isn't bad in the role, just inconsistent, and it was mostly due to some good chemistry with Ford (who he himself is a little stiff in a non-bad-ass-villain role but stuff dependable) that I could believe her in the part.

Lang also gets some moments for "pure" cinema, that is without much dialog and just the physical locations and scenes, like how Jeff just motions for a cigarette and drives away as the engineer on the train, or how he tracks Carl one night coming back from a bar drunk. And sometimes the body language and way shots are framed tells a lot about the disconnect of these people: in the aftermath of the murder, one night we see Carl and Vicki at home having dinner, very torn apart, and how they're placed in the house, separated by kitchen and living room or on other side, tells a lot about where they're at even when they don't say much. Things like that, or how Jeff and Vicki are lit outside by the tracks at night contemplating their love/lust for one another, is done with such emotion that is just fine.

Other times there is some melodrama, and, again, Crawford does ham it up in some scenes to where it comes close to unintentional hilarity (the crowd I saw the movie with laughed at a few key moments that would've probably been dead-silent back in the day, but this may be more for the change in times than anything else). If it's not quite as great as Renoir's film it's that it's not aiming as high artistically, I think. Renoir's film is a tragic romance, while this is more of a B-thriller with some aspirations for high artistry. It's not to say it's a pale imitation of that film, but it's just different. Lang's world is a bit colder, more cynical, more un-trusting of what humanity is capable of except the occasional good and usually evil tasks. No one character in Human Desire gets off the hook (except maybe Ellen), but the varying degrees makes for a strong comment on post-war morality, a defining characteristic between Lang and Renoir's adaptations.

In other words, Human Desire is cool and brutal and more than a bit sexy, and if it's not all great there's enough here for buffs to chew on.

Magnificent drama elaborately designed by the master Fritz Lang

[ma-cortes · 7/10 · 2 August 2006]

The picture is based on the Emile Zola's novel ¨La bete humaine¨. A mild- mannered and essentially decent ex-soldier (Glenn Ford) working as unhinged trainman becomes romantically involved with a mysterious , alluring but heartless and vicious femme fatal (Gloria Grahame) . He lives temporarily at home with an old friend man (Edgar Buchanan) . She is unhappily married to a tough and brutal hubby as ever ruined (Broderick Crawford). They then are involved in a mutually destructive affair . She managed and is convinced for her unwanted husband has his job back , but he has been fired , then the problems and subsequently murder are cropping up , but she plots other malignant purports .

Columbia Pictures Film production, puts all the force of the screen into a challenging drama of furious passions and though there're pretty dialog and little action is amount entertaining . It's a psychological , dark melodrama about fatalism , duplicity , pessimism and human passions . Stylish , well designed and compelling drama , although is sometimes annoyingly shrill . Love , hatred , killing , vengeance indeed figure strongly in this brightly seedy portraits of low life as Fritz Lang did also in ¨Big Heat¨ (1953) equally with Ford and Grahame . The well-designed atmosphere elaborately recreated in railway , trains , stations is entirely convincing throughout . Wonderful performances by the entire casting . Gloria Grahame (married at the time to Nicholas Ray) as manipulating woman who subtly destroys them , winning yet another awesome acting with a smouldering predatory and absolutely hypnotic interpretation in her account of the domineering that occurs from start to ending . The film contains stunning cinematography by classic cameraman Burnett Guffey . The motion picture is narrated with agility and intelligence by the great director Fritz Lang . This movie along with ¨Scarlet Street¨ are remakes of Jean Renor films . In fact ¨the Bete Humaine¨(1938) by Renoir and with Jean Gabin and Simone Simon is considered a superior version .

Hormones Screaming Loud And Clear

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 28 October 2008]

I don't think it was Fritz Lang's fault that Human Desire did not quite turn out like the Jean Renoir film of Emile Zola's La Bete Humaine, let alone the novel itself. Poor Fritz was battling the Code which demanded some kind of happy ending. In any event I'll be viewing and reviewing the Renoir film soon I hope for comparison.

In any event part of the reason that Fritz Lang did this film for Columbia I'm sure was Harry Cohn's desire to team Ford and Gloria Grahame once again. The year before the two of them had done so well in The Big Heat one of the best films that any of the three of them made. And Ford was a good cop and Grahame was her usual tramp in that one who provided information to nail the bad guys at the cost of her life. Seemed logical to let them steam up the screen again.

This time Ford is a railroad engineer newly returned from service in Korea to his former job. Ford's bunking in temporarily with his old friend Edgar Buchanan and his daughter Diane DeLaire has eyes for him.

A man with a not so good domestic situation is fellow worker Broderick Crawford married to Gloria Grahame. Given the roles Grahame normally played that's a given. Crawford gets himself fired, but Grahame knows railroad big shot Grandon Rhodes from way back when and he persuades Grahame to go visit him. Why when the inevitable occurs should Crawford be surprised, but he is and he gets insanely jealous.

So much so that he kills Rhodes in his own private compartment aboard a train where Ford just happens to be hitching a ride back. He sees Grahame in the railroad car shortly after the crime, but at the inquest doesn't give her away. Now his hormones are screaming loud and clear.

Ford's far from noble here, but it's so much worse in the Zola novel and the Renoir film that starred Jean Gabin in the role Ford played. But Lang had those Code parameters and his film instead of spicing hot, comes out cold and tepid.

Lang loses clarity of character

[gavinlockey · 6/10 · 30 September 2007]

I watched this movie for the second time the other day. First time round as a young man I watched this and enjoyed it relieved that the "hero" doesn't get dragged down by the heartless "femme fatale". now quarter of a century I see it somewhat differently and am disappointed in the lack of clarity concerning Gloria Grahame's character. For the first half of the film she elicits much sympathy, we can see that she has had a rough life and was probably raped as a 16 year old by the man whom her husband made her go and beg for a job. Knowing her as he did, he was suspicious of what "favours" Owens (the dirty old man/prospective employer and once she gets him his job back by undergoing further abuse he beats her up then takes her with him to watch him kill the guy! He then proceeds to blackmail her. Earlier comments describing Grahame's character as "pure evil" and "heartless" were surely not paying enough attention. Unfortunately as the film develops and Glenn Ford's Jeff gets involved as her lover it seems that Lang loses the thread also. As he now becomes the primary focus there is a requirement for a moral imperative within the ending. Hard war vet Jeff rejects Gloria's pleas and brings a statement of peace to her refusing to kill her husband he condemns her to death by leaving her to him. The irony of all this is that the 30 something "Jeff" is now going to look forward to having his way with the teenage daughter of his best friend.

Anyway this is a pretty good film despite this with many good performances especially Gloria Grahame and a sublime piece of acting from Broderick Crawford as the abusive killer husband who just can't keep up with life. Good filming of trains and what looks like documentary footage also. At times the sets and filming felt oppressive, nothing new there though with the often wonderful Fritz. Not his best, but make a point of watching.

It owes much to the fantastic photography

[patryk-czekaj · 7/10 · 26 November 2012]

One of the most unpleasant film noir in the genre. But in case of this movie, it's rather a well-deserved compliment for its hot-edginess and hardboiled melodramatic sensations. Human desire aspires to be a hard-hitting, gutsy crime picture that shows not only a story of romance bound to fail from the start, but also makes a series of aggressive comments on the topic of alcoholism and pathology in families.

When Jeff Warren (Glenn Ford) returns home after serving his time in Korea, his only dream is to return back to his steady job as a train engineer. Unfortunately, on his way he meets a vulgar, abusive Carl Buckley (Broderick Crawford). The man is in desperate need of an intervention in order to keep his job, and begs his beautiful wife Vicki (Gloria Grahame) to stand by him during the meeting with his boss. However, due to his alcohol addiction and distorted mind, Carl thinks that she met with Owens so as to flirt with him. On the train back Carl kills the man, and Jeff - who was very close to the whole action - bumps into Vicky and quickly develops feelings for her. She, on the other hand, wants to take advantage of his generosity. Being abused by her raging husband, she finds solace in the arms of a stranger. However, in a small city every rumor spreads faster than the wind. Carl starts drinking more and more, and blackmails Vicky with a letter into staying with him for as long as they'll live. Vicky soon comes up with a devilish plan to get rid of her disgraceful hubby...

The film owes much to the mightily effective and spellbinding photography. It portrays not only America's working class, but also many in-train sequences, which give the film a much-deserved claustrophobic feel. The intensity of the atmosphere goes through the roof as the characters argue and fight inside the small compartments, making their disputes even more dramatic and realistic than they are. Human Desire may not be Fritz Lang's masterpiece, but it surely deserves a view, for it is a violently sombre tale about regular people, who bring about their own demise through a series of tragic misunderstandings.

Big heat on the railroad track

[dbdumonteil · 13 September 2006]

Emile ZOLA's books are deceptive.It is hard to transfer them to the screen badly while being harder still to make great movies out of them.In "La Bete Humaine" the 19th volume in the Rougon-Macquart saga,the hero was "invented" from start to finish by the writer who needed another son of Gervaise ("l'Assommoir").Like most of Zola's characters ,his family had a history of mental illness (which stemmed from alcoholism).When he made his movie in 1939,(la Bete Humaine)Jean Renoir insisted on the "I cannot help it" side ,which the scene when Gabin tries to strangle Blanchette Brunoy and the apocalyptic finale perfectly restitutes.

As Zola's book was -it's one of his best- also a thriller (some of its chapters make me think of Patricia Highsmith) ,Lang's treatment made sense.This is one of the few Zola novels which after all could happen in America .The war is a hackneyed subject and is not really a good equivalent of Lantier's (the original name)folly.That's why Glenn Ford's character is not really interesting ,even if it fits in the Lang's "every man is a potential criminal" mold.On the other hand Gloria Grahame's character is at least as good as Simone Simon's one.She displays more ambiguity,she too seems at once "good" and "evil".

Lang's talent makes the opening as exciting as Renoir's work but the finale is definitely inferior.

It was the second time Ford and Grahame had teamed up for Lang after "the big heat" (which was ,IMHO,a better collaboration)

Second-rate Fritz Lang is still absorbing film noir...

[Doylenf · 6/10 · 22 January 2007]

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.

Fine Noir

[Prof-Hieronymos-Grost · 8/10 · 18 April 2008]

War veteran Jeff Warren (Glenn Ford) returns home and takes up his old position as a train engineer. One night Warren makes a pass at a friendly woman on a train, but she leaves him in a hurry, next day warren learns that a passenger wass murdered on the train he was travelling on. He is called as a witness at the inquiry. He tells the judge he saw nothing on the train and hides the fact from the judge that he unwittingly made advances on fellow passenger Vicki Buckley, the wife of his co worker Carl Buckley (Broderick Crawford). Warren and Vicki soon hit it off, but soon Warren believes Vicky may have had something to do with the killing. Nice thriller with some great railroad footage, but you might be hard pressed to recognize it as a Lang film. Grahame is especially good in a particularly slutty role

Suspenseful noir from Fritz Lang

[The_Void · 7/10 · 10 February 2009]

Human Desire is a 1954 update of Jean Renoir classic film The Human Beast, which was based on a book by Émile Zola. Fritz Lang made his best films while still in Germany; but his USA output still has plenty of gems within it, and while this film is only really a minor footnote in Lang's filmography, it's still a complex, interesting and suspenseful slice of film noir and anyone that is a fan of this type of film will undoubtedly find something to like about it. The film focuses on Jeff Warren; a soldier returning home after the war in Korea. He stays with a friend, gets his old job as an engineer on a train back, and finds himself the attention of his friend's young daughter. Meanwhile, his co-worker Carl Buckley is having problems; he's lost his job and is forced to beg his wife, Vicki, to beg a Mr Owens (whom her mother worked for) for his job back. She gets his job back, but things take a turn when he becomes jealous of his wife and ends up killing Owens on a train...

The film takes on the classic bleak film noir style and Lang compliments this well with his assortment of characters and the plot line. The major players in the plot are fairly well fleshed out; though only well enough to ensure that we never really know what each of them is going to do next. The title, 'Human Desire', seems very fitting considering that most of the events of the film focus around just that. The characters are always the main central point of the movie and Fritz Lang derives most of the movie's suspense and interest from there. Glenn Ford takes the lead role and provides a likable figure. On the flipside are Broderick Crawford and Gloria Grahame who are the film's antagonists. Gloria Grahame gets the role that stands out the most and while she is memorable; she does appear a little awkward at times. The film is interesting for the duration; although the ending is something of a let-down as things are not entirely resolved by then and it feels a little like Lang is pulling the rug from under his audience. Still, this is a very good noir from one of the best directors out there and comes recommended for that reason.

Lovers and killers on a train, all trying not to get mixed up and getting the more mixed up for trying not to...

[clanciai · 9/10 · 23 November 2018]

Glenn Ford is unusually good here, although he plays the same character as he always did, but here at least he doesn't talk and act too much but is kept more aptly at bay by the expert thriller director Fritz Lang, who once again surprises you by appearing totally new in his ways of getting into people. Gloria Grahame is always good but here better than ever as a helpless victim of her exposed weakness as married to the hoodlum Broderick Crawford, who is here worse than ever, but only as a type, not as a character, because his acting is marvellous, going constantly from bad to worse in one of the most convincing revelations on cinema of a man going piece by piece to perdition.

I was disappointed by the Jean Gabin film on this story, which was downright depressing in spite of Jean Renoir's excellent direction, but this film is not depressing, although the same story but with a more human view of the situation. Glenn Ford is supremely reasonable all the way, he actually tries to help both the hopeless cases of the Buckley couple, and there is nothing wrong with the logics of the alterations here of Emile Zola's story. The Amphiteatrof music is terrific all the way and underlines Lang's fascinating direction and the very sophisticated cinematography. It's a great film on a bad story, Jean Renoir made the bad story even more destructive on film, but here at least you have genuine human feelings, in the despairing eyes of Gloria Grahame, the sharply investigating looks of Glenn Ford, and the exaggerated but marvellously convincing drunkenness, as an illustration of his helplessness, of Broderick Crawford. It's a small story of small people, which Fritz Lang succeeds in turning into a highly impressing film.

dark noir

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 22 August 2017]

Volatile drunk Carl Buckley gets fired from the train yard. He gets his flirtatious young wife Vicki to convince railroad executive John Owens to give his job back. Unbeknownst to Carl, the two have a history and she gives John sexual favor. Carl grows violently jealous and has Vicki lure John onto a train. Jeff Warren (Glenn Ford) encounters and is distracted by Vicki as Carl murders John.

This is a dark melodramatic noir of non-sympathetic characters with no rooting interest. Gloria Grahame is a great saucy, full-on femme-fatale. I want to like Glenn Ford more but I don't. It's a lurid tale and perfect good for its genre. Fritz Lang's directing is good but it could be more stylishly dark. Overall, it is more melodrama than to my liking.

Emotion Locomotion

[howdymax · 8/10 · 2 April 2012]

This is Fritz Lang, so one would expect lots of dark emotion, double crossing, and sexual tension. Well, you won't be disappointed. This one has it all. The story is hardly original. In fact, Emile Zola was given story credit. It is a love triangle with Broderick Crawford and Gloria Grahame as an unhappy couple, with Glenn Ford at his somnambulistic best, showing all the emotion of a turnip. Watching him try to generate the emotion required to be the catalyst in a love triangle was almost painful. In fact, he almost sinks this movie into cinematic obscurity. Thankfully, it is resurrected by the performances of his costars. I am always amazed at the on screen sexuality of Gloria Grahame. She is hardly your typical Hollywood beauty. Her features are somehow askew, but she absolutely exudes sex. The other redeeming performance is given by Broderick Crawford. He plays her jealous, out of control husband. He has a natural explosive persona, but in this movie I kept waiting for him to fly off the rails.

Speaking of rails. This is a train noir, if there is such a thing. It all takes place around, aboard, and about trains. Glenn Ford is an engineer and Crawford the yard boss. Train buffs will love it. There are numerous scenes of the engineer and passenger compartments, the rail yards, the roundhouse, and plenty of rambling track shots. It is all diesel in the '50's which I think most people would agree was the zenith of train travel in the US.

Despite it's predictability and some of it's shortcomings, I still found this movie extremely enjoyable. My only real complaint came at the end, which seemed to leave the viewer at loose ends and feeling somewhat bewildered. Still, if you like trains and dark drama, take a look. It hasn't been around much and the title is fairly generic, so it isn't easy to find, but it is certainly worth the effort.

Desire amongst gloom

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 28 February 2020]

Fritz Lang was a truly fine director, whose lesser work was still better than the lesser work of a lot of directors. As cliched as that sounds. His best work was truly fantastic though, and a few of them even influential in their genres and in film history. Emile Zola's work is always intriguing but is not easy to adapt and equally easy to underwhelm and even mess up. The cast is a talented one, Broderick Crawford didn't always work for me but Glenn Ford was a very charismatic actor who smoldered at his best and Gloria Grahame likewise.

'Human Desire' is definitely worth seeing. It serves Ford and especially Grahame very well, it is extremely well made, intriguing and Lang's direction does have flashes of brilliance. At the same time, it is very easy to see why others have said why they consider 'Human Desire' lesser Lang and also that there are better adaptations of Zola's work. Is that disparaging or dismissing the film? Absolutely not. Saying that 'Human Desire' is lesser Lang does not really mean necessarily mean a bad thing.

There are a lot of great things with 'Human Desire'. It looks absolutely wonderful, with photography that is both sumptuous and eerie. The trains and train-tracks are like characters of their own. Lang's direction shows quite a lot of brilliance, especially in the more symbolic scenes because his distinctive styles really does come through in these scenes. It is hauntingly scored and intelligently scripted.

Some of the story has tension and the symbolism, of which there is quite a bit of, is visually striking and truly thought-provoking. The acting comes over greatly, although Crawford gives one of his better performances here in my opinion due to having an interesting character (which he didn't always have) and Ford gives a performance full of charisma and intensity. But the biggest revelation is Grahame, who truly captivates in every sense of the word.

However, although the symbolism is really striking it does get in the way of the story at times, which compels enough but felt under-explored. Character motivations lacked clarity in spots and there was a bit of an emotional disconnect in mostly the characters.

Did find some of the story too slight and that the pace was sometimes sluggish. Those flaws make it sound like 'Human Desire' was a bad film, which is not the case at all and will never be the case. Just that he did better.

A film worth watching, but not a Lang essential. Those that are fans of Grahame will be amazed though. 6.5/10 (a very indecisive rating but thought giving it a 6 would be insulting to it considering what else has been rated a 6 by me, some of them enough to make one's eyes pop out of the sockets and it is better than those).

Fritz Lang derailed

[vostf · 3/10 · 28 April 2005]

After a series of fantastic directorial achievements Fritz Lang settled in Hollywood. And he learned too well how to let his creative mind be overwhelmed by social conventions. How distressing. Yes, Fritz Lang became a conventional filmmaker, dealing with social issues but with the conventional, stiff characters the American audience was suppose to root for (the sanctified common man). The man who gave us the über dark Mabuse, the pathetic child murderer in M and the lively komissar Lohman would only occasionally go back to his original contrasted palette (Woman in the Window, Rancho Notorious or Moonfleet).

Even without references to the original source material, or to the celebrated Renoir adaptation, Human Desire is a downright failure. Glenn Ford is as uninteresting a character as you can imagine, he just stands there and waits for the accidents to occur. Beyond there's hardly a couple of scenes which stand by themselves and if you're not that interested in old trains (and all the railway symbolics if you really must) you're sure to feel tired and bored very very soon.

The Zola book certainly needed a lot of editing (the trial part could easily be left out) but the spine of it was Lantier's (the noir hero) emerging psychopathy. Renoir did a great job to make it fit in Gabin's personality in La Bête Humaine. What about Human Desire? It's just gone! The premise is just gone from the H'wood Express! As we learned in the beginning that Glenn Ford, nice American boy, just comes back from Korea I was hoping to see him show a dark side. No way, he's a star designed to smile in studio stills. What's left is a cold rail of anecdotal plot points droning to a oh-so-moral conclusion. Yep, it totally misses the mark.