This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping.
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Binding: DVD EAN: 0024543528609 Format: Black & White, Subtitled Label: 20th Century Fox Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: 20th Century Fox Region Code: 1 Release Date: September 02, 2008 Running Time: 95 minutes Studio: 20th Century Fox Theatrical Release Date: 1948 Sales Rank: 4018 MPN: D2252860D
Description: Ida Lupino is a singer working at Richard Widmark's club. When she falls for Cornel Wilde, Widmark goes berserk.
Amazon.com: 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
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - JEAN NEGULESCO, OPUS 9
**** 1948. Directed by Jean Negulesco. When Lily Stevens is hired by Jefty to sing in his bar/bowling, everybody knows that Lily will soon be his mistress. But she's rather attracted by Jefty's friend ... Read More
Rating: - Great movie, great commentary!
Let me first say that this is an extremely enjoyable film. Ida Lupino is perfect as the hard-bitten nightclub singer, and dominates the early part of the film. But it's watching Richard Widmark's character ... Read More
Rating: - Road House
I love the older movies. This one is what I refer to as a Fifty Dollar Budget Movie
Rating: - I loved Ida Lupino
I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. Ida Lupino was a revelation of inner strength and beauty. What would this movie be without Richard Widmark? For that matter, what would many movies be without him? Can we say ... Read More
Rating: - Excellent Film Noir
Wonderful Film Noir movie. Four great performances from Ida Lupine, Richard Widmark, Cornel Wilde and Celeste Holm
- Road House
- I loved Ida Lupino