The Frame

This has been on my list literally forEVER. Back since the days my best friend and I were total Humphrey Bogart fangirls. In other words, ten years or so. Why I never watched it before this, I couldn’t say…clearly my life would have been more complete if I had watched it earlier. Okay, veering into hyperbole. But the point is, this film is better than I ever expected it to be, better than most films noires, better than most classic films, and better than most current films. The acting is perfect, and in fact makes the term “acting” seem almost irrelevant. Bogart isn’t “acting” here…he is BEING Dix Steele. And it takes quite an actress to hold her own on the screen with Bogart, but Gloria Grahame does that and more…she becomes the center of the film, almost, the character we care about, the one we identify with. The story, basically, Bogart is the last person seen with a young girl before she is murdered, and thus is a likely suspect. His neighbor Grahame turns out to be his alibi, and soon, she is his inspiration (he is an all-but-washed-up Hollywood screenwriter) and his possible savior from his life of loneliness and despair. And the wonderful thing is that while you’d think that finding out who killed the young girl would be the focus of a film like this, it isn’t…the murder is horribly important, but it’s important because of the effect it has on Bogart, on Grahame, and on them as a couple. The entire thing is raw, it’s visceral, it grabs your attention and won’t let go. It is certainly the best film I’ve seen this year, and probably in a lot longer. And it has not dated one little bit.
Superior