Road House (Fox Film Noir)
by Jean Negulesco
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Celeste Holm, Charles Flynn, Cornel Wilde, Ida Lupino, Richard WidmarkDirector: Jean Negulesco
Cinematographer: Joseph La Shelle
Composer: Cyril Mockridge
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 95 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-09-02
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of Road House (Fox Film Noir)
Movie Review: Widmark Goes Psychotic Again!
Summary: 4 Stars
This was a very interesting character study of three people: "LIly Stevens" (Ida Lupino), "Jefty Robbins" (Richard Widmark) and "Pete Morgan" (Cornel Wilde).
The two guys are attracted to Lupino, who prefers good-guy Wilde. The scorned Widmark then gets his revenge. This film was a year after Widmark played sadistic killer "Tommy Udo" in "Kiss Of Death" and his character in this movie isn't too far removed from Udo. In both films, Widmark provides the spark when the story needed it.
That's not to say the rest of the cast isn't good, too. Ida Lupino always played interesting roles, but Widmark playing these psycho villains is just fascinating and stands out.
I'm glad to see this film noir finally now available on DVD.
Summary of Road House (Fox Film Noir)
Ida Lupino is a singer working at Richard Widmark's club. When she falls for Cornel Wilde, Widmark goes berserk.Road House has acquired a cult as a prime film noir. Certainly the title location is archetypal, a lounge and bowling alley up toward the Canadian border, and Ida Lupino and Richard Widmark make the most of flavorful roles that would qualify them as exemplary noir denizens even if they hadn't established that elsewhere. He's the second-generation owner of the place who's never been obliged to grow up. She's a somewhat shopworn dame he's brought back from Chicago to play the piano and sing. He--Jefty's the name, by the way--decides to marry her, and is unhinged enough not to realize he needs to ask first. She, meanwhile, has been rubbing Jefty's sobersides right-hand man (Cornel Wilde) the wrong way, and both of them are getting to like it. Fairly psychotic vengeance ensues.
This was director Jean Negulesco's first film for Fox, pretty much coinciding with his career peak of Johnny Belinda, a Warner Bros. picture that would bring him an Oscar nomination. Yet Road House is a frustratingly mixed bag. The writing boasts expert three-cushion dialogue--which Lupino delivers deftly--but the script is poorly structured overall. (Screenwriter-producer Edward Chodorov was appropriating material from another crazy-young-fellow movie he'd worked on, MGM's 1942 Rage in Heaven.) Cinematographer Joseph (Laura) LaShelle's lighting and setups are characteristically artful and glossy, but he's obliged to make too many studio "exteriors" look good--a standard cheat in that era, but more irksome than usual because the ostensible location cries out for legitimacy (couldn't they have gone to Lake Arrowhead at least?). Totally on the plus side, however, Ida really does sing and, for the first time in her career, is not dubbed; as Celeste Holm's character notes in admiration and envy, "She does more without a voice than anyone I ever heard." Musical highlights: "One for My Baby" and "Again." --Richard T. Jameson
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