Human Desire

You never knew me.

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 h...

"Jeff" (Glenn Ford) returns from the Korean War to the United States where he picks up where he left off at the railroad. His boss "Buckley" (Broderick Crawford) is the jealous sort and suspects that his wife "Vicki" (Gloria Grahame) is playing away with her former, and wealthy, boss. When she returns home one night, he confronts her and forces her to write a letter that will lure the man to an unused stateroom on a train - and, well... Thing is, "Jeff" is also on the train - and he manages to complicate their exit strategy. She sees a chance, now, to be rid of her brutish husband and sets about seducing her new friend and trying to manipulate him into finding a new use for an heavy spanner. Graham is on good form here as the duplicitous wo...