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.
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.