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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: 20th Century Fox
Salesrank: 19716
Released: September 2, 2008 |
| Our Price: $7.38 |
| Used Price: $7.55 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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| Features:
Black & White Subtitled | |
Editorial Review:
Ida Lupino is a singer working at Richard Widmark's club. When she falls for Cornel Wilde, Widmark goes berserk.
Description of Road House (Fox Film Noir):
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
Road House (Fox Film Noir) Reviews:
Ida lupino -They don't make them like that anymore! 
2009-12-06 - Road House-
Yea, so she shines in this movie. Just another old black and white movie with a forgotten actress lost in time -right? What to you really care? There are thousands of movies since her time -plenty of sultry new babes and hi-tech film hotties to grab your attention who know how to act the part of a bitch while teasing you with their trinkets. What was so special about her? Bare with me here. If I had my choice of a dinner date with any actress past or present, or any woman for that matter -why would it be her? In this movie, she plays a hard luck lounge singer with a burnt out voice and a worse attitude who is not shy about telling the men around her where to get off. I wouldn't take that kind of an attitude for a second from any modern woman- so why would I take every bit from her with a smile. It's because when she was dishing out her worst, you still sense vulnerability beneath -there was a real woman there with real feelings. What other woman could be hurling her worst insults -while you were enjoying it and falling in love with her. I haven't seen one lately. I repeat -They don't make them like that anymore. Yes, 'Road House' is one of her best movies- But she nailed me the same way in every movie of hers I've ever seen; 'Out of the Fog' 'They drive by Night' 'Moontide' 'Sea Wolf' and many others -If she was in it, don't think it could ever be called a bad movie. If you can watch any one of them without falling for her -then best of luck to you. She left a lot of treasures and if any actress deserves to be rediscovered and remembered; she gets my vote. This DVD is a great transfer with some nice special features as are the other movies mentioned. I am still waiting for 'Sea Wolf' and 'Out of the Fog' to come out on DVD. Here's to Ida!
Trouble In The North Woods 
2009-11-09 - ROADHOUSE(1948)---Richard Widmark, Ida Lupino, Cornel Wilde, Celeste Holm
This is a very good film noir, with everyone involved turning in first-rate performances. Widmark plays the owner of the title establishment, Wilde is his childhood friend and manager of the roadhouse, and Lupino is a singer hired by Widmark to work in his joint. Widmark also nurses fantasies of having more than a "working" relationship with Lupino. Celeste Holm plays Wilde's "right-hand girl" at the roadhouse and she has a pretty thankless part as the girl who everybody takes for granted. In typical Hollywood fashion, this was the role that Holm was assigned immediately after winning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in, GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT---go figure!!! This is Lupino's movie all the way---she really steals the show from her two male leads. She's tough as nails and is nobody's fool. I've always thought that Lupino was very underrated as an actress and this film is strong suppport for that argument.
Anyway, after some verbal sparring and some very sexually charged exchanges, Wilde and Lupino fall in love, which does not please Widmark's character at all. The final third of the film is devoted to Widmark's reaction to the situation and his attempt to "punish" the two lovebirds. Widmark is terrific as the "nice guy turned psycho". He is in fine form as the deranged, giggling nut-job we know and love. This was one of Widmark's last roles as a mental case. A couple of years later, Widmark began to insist on being given other types of roles and began showing his versatility in 1950 in PANIC IN THE STREETS. Of course, in that same year, he played a "foaming at the mouth" racist in NO WAY OUT!!!
Anyway, I digress. ROADHOUSE is a very good movie and I highly recommend it---as a noir, as a vehicle for Lupino, and for Widmark's excellent performance.
delightful surprise...thank gosh...after boring Moontide.
2009-09-18 - bought Moontide and Roadhouse at the same time. Sorry, but Moontide was so dull! I almost didn't watch Roadhouse. BUT Roadhouse was wonderful! Lupino great...and wonderful costumes for you few Noir fans who like that..I DO... and story all around really good. Wonderful to see Celeste Holm, who is so refreshing and normal, in contrast to all the other characters. Lots of good one liners...
but...as an older viewer...and somewhat free of drama in my ripe age of 46...I couldn't help think---wouldn't Cornel have been much happier with Celeste??! But then it wouldn't be Noir would it?
4 stars because Double Indemnity is 5 stars.
Film Noir in an Oddly Rustic Setting, with an Unusual Female Lead.
2009-08-03 - "Road House" is a film noir from the height of the noir cycle with a strangely rustic setting: a stone and wood roadhouse -restaurant, lounge, and bowling alley- named "Jefty's" after its owner, located somewhere up north, near the Canadian border. Jefty Robbins (Richard Widmark) owns the place and hires Lily Stevens (Ida Lupino), a singer from Chicago with whom he is smitten, to entertain in the bar. He thinks it will double their bar receipts, but his business manager Pete Morgan (Cornell Wilde) thinks Jefty paid too much and tries to get Lily to leave. Lily has a contract and is not to be swayed, so she stays, and she's a hit at the bar. Jefty pursues her with increasing vigor, but Lily rebuffs him. And she clashes with Pete...until Jefty goes out of town.
Nightclubs are a classic film noir setting, but they don't usually have moose heads on the walls or exposed beams in the ceiling. Or bowling alleys. "Jefty's" is in a small town, where the other recreations are hunting and swimming in the river. Jefty's cabin in the woods is an even more rural location. Richard Widmark does his signature psychologically nuanced bad guy, with which he made some memorable film noir between 1947 and 1953. Here he borrows a bit from his famous Tommy Udo performance in "Kiss of Death" (1947). Ida Lupino's Lily Stevens is an interesting version of a noir woman. She has all the makings of a femme fatale. She's cool, cynical, and sharp-tongued. But she makes the choices of a protagonist, not a villain. She's a tough drifter, the kind we usually see as a male character, crossed with a lonely woman with traditional values.
But when the bad girl is actually a good girl, that makes the good girl a thankless role. The traditional good girl is the cashier at the roadhouse, Susie Smith, played by Celeste Holm, just off of her Academy Award win for Best Supporting Actress in "Gentleman's Agreement" (1947). Susie is a nice, bright woman who pines after Pete, selfless and respectable until the end. She always wears a coat or bulky clothing to make her look heavy next to the slight Lupino. Susie's a fine woman, but not destined to get the guy or the attention in this film. "Road House" has great cast all around, though, and the odd location adds to the intrigue.
The DVD (20th Century Fox 2008): Bonus features are one featurette, an "Interactive Pressbook" with close-ups of the Exhibitors Campaign Book so that we can read the articles, 4 Still Galleries (124 images), and an audio commentary. "Killer Instincts: Richard Widmark and Ida Lupino at Twentieth Century Fox" (19 min) interviews a collection of film historians about the careers of Widmark and Lupino and their work in this film. The audio commentary is by film noir historians Eddie Muller and Kim Morgan. They discuss the actors, character interaction, and compare the film to the original version of the story, which was darker. I wish they had done more scene-by-scene analysis. This one is less informative than most of Muller's commentaries. Subtitles available for the film in English, French, and Spanish.
Widmark Goes Psychotic Again!
2009-04-21 - 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.
