"“I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.” One of the great lines of this story, again based on a novel by Dorothy B. Hughes. I have recommended this movie to many a brooding actor, one of whom called me the next day only to admonish me, “Why did you think I needed to see this film?” I’m a dame, so don’t crawl all over me, but I think men like this film because they can watch it and be tormented, with a glass of scotch in hand, and think about all the dames who ruined them. In a Lonely Place asks: Can violence be romantic? Are all men violent by nature? Do women drive men to be violent toward them? Do women sometimes desire men to be violent? The film touches disturbingly on the psychology of physical abuse, so women, beware. It seems to say: I beat you because I love you, because I can’t live without you. And if I can’t have you, if you want to leave me, I may have to kill you. The fact that a love-hate relationship was going on during the making of the film between the people who made it—director Nicholas Ray and Ray’s then wife, star Gloria Grahame—only gives it an added dimension. It’s interesting to note that In a Lonely Place was made during a time when that sort of behavior toward women was more acceptable, was even considered love. Read up on Bogart’s third marriage, to actress Mayo Methot. They nearly killed each other but, while married, were affectionately referred to as “the battling Bogarts.” Humphrey Bogart always played a tough guy on-screen. He had an inner violence that escaped in a knowing snarl, or a slap or two for poor Peter Lorre in The Maltese Falcon. This Bogart is pretty ugly. Was he playing himself? He’s the producer here, so it seems obvious he wanted to expose himself within the confines of the story. Bogart plays Dixon Steele, a washed-up, once-famous screenwriter. He’s a loner, he’s an alcoholic, and he’s also quite the snappy dresser—which I thought was a great touch. It’s a signal that he sets himself apart. He’s better than everyone else. He doesn’t have to follow the rules. He has his own code of behavior, and if you don’t like it, he’ll smash your face in. He’s someone who seems so far removed from his own actions that it’s hard to even root for him. Although he is a violent drunk, he never sees it that way. He’s noble. There’s some kind of masculine honor in Dix that Bogart and Ray seem to say is lacking in every other man in Hollywood. Ah, when men were men, and you could booze and brawl all night. Every sadist needs a masochist, and no one plays sexy-doomed better than Gloria Grahame. Her suffering was usually some sort of retribution. Lee Marvin throws hot coffee in her face in The Big Heat. She becomes a prostitute in the nightmare vision of Bedford Falls, Pottersville, in It’s a Wonderful Life. She dies in a plane crash after cheating on Dick Powell in The Bad and the Beautiful. She shines here. And could someone explain to me the undercurrent of her relationship with her female masseuse? “She beats me black and blue.” Hmmm . . . In In a Lonely Place, she is the wrong girl who moved into the wrong place and got hooked up with the wrong guy while running away from another wrong guy. Laurel Gray. Wonder if they took the name from Laurel Canyon, a winding road in LA. She’s never going to find happiness, especially with a man like Dix, and you know that from the minute you see her. The original ending of In a Lonely Place has Laurel strangled by Dix in the heat of their last argument as she attempts to leave him. He then calmly finishes his screenplay as the police come to arrest him. That’s Hollywood. In spite of killing his girlfriend, he finishes his screenplay. I would have preferred that, because I think that’s a reflection of what Ray and Bogart really felt. Instead, Ray got cold feet, and the ending, though tragic, lets Dix off the hook, leaving us to believe he will forever be in that lonely place. He’s the victim. Is there nobility in that? Maybe Ray was looking for his own happy ending. He and Grahame divorced in 1952. In 1956, Ray made Bigger Than Life, another film I love that explores a man driven to almost killing his wife."

"I've read since that Hex Enduction Hour was going to be the last Fall album and that Mark was going to split the band up if it didn't work. The rest of us weren't aware of this. I guess it could have been like David Bowie splitting up the Spiders From Mars onstage at the Hammersmith Odeon, but obviously this proved not to be the case. I put this in here because it was the last Fall album that I did, and everything that we'd learned just came together. I was on Live At The Witch Trials, but that was a pop album. It sounds like a totally different group… well, it did have different musicians on it, I guess. Mark obviously wasn't clear on what he wanted The Fall to sound like at that point in time; Dragnet was just the sound of a load of kids who couldn't play being thrown in a studio and being excited and being in their favourite band but… [laughs] well, Dragnet is a mystery to me, that album… I remember recording it and the production… it never sounded the same twice. I realised that wasn't how we sounded live. It didn't sound like The Fall. It sounded amazing in its own way but it didn't sound like The Fall. It didn't capture what we were doing. But with Hex Enduction Hour, everything came together at that one point. We did some of it live in a cinema in Hitchin and some of it in a studio in Iceland that had lava walls. Apparently it's still talked about to this day, The Fall's stay in Iceland. No one went to Iceland then, The Stranglers had played there, Jaz Coleman ran off there to find the ley lines, but that was it. I think we first went there because we were invited by Einar from the Sugarcubes. He instigated it. It was so bleak there. There was no tourism. And the mentality of the Icelandic people was like that of The Fall, to be honest. It was a real case of us versus them. They were out on a limb. Iceland didn't integrate. It was a really strange community of people. They were really nice but otherworldly. That was my swansong really. I mean I'm on that Room To Live album as well, but I listen to Hex and I hear a glorious racket. I think that's when Mark really got to grips with what he wanted The Fall to sound like, and ironically you find out later that it was going to be the last Fall album. Mark's stream of consciousness really comes together, the way he makes words up like in the title, he really got a handle on where he wanted to take his own art. And with the band it was all because we'd been playing together for a long time. Steve Hanley couldn't play bass when we were together in [pre-Fall group] The Sirens, I taught him the root notes and I couldn't play guitar either… I still can't, if I'm honest. Steve found his feet and found his sound, so he became the engine room of The Fall. The sound of it is right, despite being recorded in these two totally different environments. I remember when I heard 'Hip Priest' on Silence Of The Lambs, because I was the only person left in the cinema when it came on… I tell a lie, it was just me and the wife. Jonathan Demme was a massive Fall fan. Yeah, it was peculiar that… but then again it's the music that a serial killer's playing in his house, so is it really that weird? Mark's given me grief over the years, but how can you take any of it to heart? Anything he says is water off a duck's back. He's a character… almost a cartoon character. I've got a massive soft spot for Mark and I'm a massive fan. Round the corner from here there used to be a venue called The Arches Bar and a mate of mine was having his birthday party in there in the mid-80s. I was upstairs, and my mate said Mark Smith's downstairs and he wants a pint with you. So I thought, right, well, we've both grown up since then, let's have a drink and put it all behind us. So I had a couple of pints with him, and we had a really good time together. I'd been listening to The Fall, he said – and he'll deny this – I've got your album and I'm keeping an eye on what you're doing and I think it's great. I mean we were both drunk, but by the end of it we were kind of mates again. Then about three months later they reissued a load of Fall albums on Cog Sinister, so I rang him up and said, 'Am I going to get paid for any of this?' And he said, 'No you're not!' [makes noise of phone being slammed down] So it was straight back to square one."