Human Desire is an odd film, more persuasively transplanted than Lang's previous attempt at a Zola-Renoir story (Scarlet Street), even if ultimately the proper conclusions of the story are shirked.

The American railroad setting is quite acceptable …; and some of the script changes are even welcome. In relieving the engine-driving hero of his congenital sadistic mania, Alfred Hayes has given the story a sharper focus. The design is now clearer and simpler: the seduction and destruction of the honest driver, homme moyen sensuel, by the feline tramp who has become the unwilling accomplice of her husband in the murder of her wealthy lover. There is something old-fashioned in the situation, but it remains a valid one, and one senses its appeal to Lang's harsh, Germanic temperament.

This harshness is apparent in the film. There is a welcome lack of gloss about it. The little town at the end...