Watched In a Lonely Place recently. The Story is about Love and fear, set in a time when societal norms were very different from what they are today. As the plot unfolds, the modern viewer must find a way to parse out the element of time and find the kernel that is story - a flawed man who is attractive but volatile in love with a kind, sweet-tempered woman. She loses power in the equation as soon as she falls in love - is no longer being wooed and pursued. 

The more she entangles herself emotionally, the greater her loss of agency and equilibrium. Dix Steele played by Bogart acts out in proportion to the woman's closeness to him. Dix needs a therapist well before he needs a relationship with anyone - but those were not the norms of the times. As his agent puts it - anyone who wants to deal with him needs to take the good with the bad. There was social  (and even medical) acceptance for behavior that would be considered outrageous today. 

The dynamic between Bogart and Grahame is played out brilliantly. There is a kind of man who cannot separate love from control and subsumption of the woman he loves. They naturally gravitate to the kind of woman who cannot calibrate how much of her self she must or will give up in the name of love - she does not realize she has the choice to give up none at all and that relationship would be as loving as it would be empowering.