In a Lonely Place, dir. Nicholas Ray In a Lonely Place Of course you didn't see it coming, Laurel. How could you? It was Humphrey Bogart, as charming and smart and broken as ever, & I didn't see it coming either. You see, I believed in Bogey. I thought I knew him. He was Rick Blaine, Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe. I believed in the "proverbial heart of gold" the detective had scoffed at with such disdain. And when I heard about his ex-lover with the broken nose, I told myself, as you did, Laurel, that there must be more to the story. Did I realize you were doomed at the same time you did? When the rock was in his hand and the boy he'd beaten black and blue lay prone and defenseless at his feet? I waited, as you did, Laurel, for some magic secret to make everything make sense. He didn't kill the girl, but in the end, that didn't even matter. He wasn't Humphrey Bogart, he was Dixon Steele. And both of us had to admit, as his hands wrapped around your neck, that we really should have known from the beginning.