I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Best movie of this year hands down!

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Reportedly Ida Lupino referred to herself jokingly as 'the poor man's Bette Davis' or some such. Don't you believe it -- just listen to her croak out 'It's a Quarter to Three' at the piano her resting cigarette is burning a groove into. Heart. Breaks.Lupino plays a beat-up-by-life chan-toozy, limping in from Chicago for a gig at the biggest joint in a tiny backwater. Boss Richard Widmark likes what he sees. So does the boss's buddy/employee Cornel Wilde. Let the fun begin.There is something in the story structure of 'Road House' akin to the top-of-the-genre 'Gilda' released two years earlier: not-unattractive Boss owns the game thus owns the attractive falling-in-love employees -- who may have other ideas -- forcing Boss to prove his power. Polymorphous sexual undercurrents flow in several directions in the male-male-female triangle. One terrifying section of the film demonstrates how legally enslaving a 'have-not' is easy for a 'have' to accomplish in the modern era -- a parallel to the extended sequence in 'Gilda' where Rita Hayworth attempts to escape her 'gilda'd cage'. This is not at all to suggest 'Road House' is a copycat -- it is superior original work, and, if anything, explores variations on familiar noir themes -- lust, rot, and madness on the dark side of the moon of humanity and whatnot.I admit I never 'got' Cornell Wilde before seeing this film -- but the scene where he teaches Ida Lupino how to bowl -- masterful. The guy's got exquisite acting chops and natural sex appeal, and this is the film that lets you know it! His character has a pungent smell -- and it's not unpleasant. Richard Widmark manages to shade his megalomaniac with enough exuberant and attractive normalcy to keep it interesting. Edward Chodorov's script intelligently gives him a plausible descent from slightly-off to utter depravity. Widmark's a solid talent, and this performance compares favorably to similar heavies-with-humanity of the genre, e.g., George MacReady in 'Gilda', Thomas Gomez in 'Johnny O'Clock'.Celeste Holme as the 'nice, semi-involved bystander' character skillfully provides the supporting connective tissue between the suppurating major organs, as she decides where her sympathies lie.Director/Portrait Artist Jean Negulesco's visual sense gives the film a look you like to look at. This is a smart, sexy movie that respects and entertains, at least in the opinion of this humble (albeit somewhat demanding) audient.

A great noir featuring Ida Lupino and three other actors. That's irony if anybody asks you because the other three actors are Richard Widmark, Cornel Wilde and Celeste Holm who would tower over anyone else but had the misfortune to come up against Ida Lupino in a performance she equalled only eight years later when she played Marion in The Big Knife. I stumbled on this gem years ago and I've been trying unsuccessfully to find it on DVD but then I found it on youtube albeit with Greek subtitles and it was as good as I remembered. Widmark was still obliged - a contractual obligation for all I know - to display his psychotic laugh and sociopath tendencies but for roughly half the running time he was allowed to display other aspects of his talent whilst Celeste Holm makes the most of a thankless 'good egg' role. A fine movie of that rare breed they've forgotten how to make.

Road House (1948)Road House is in some ways a straight up romance with noir stylizing. The setting is great, out in some isolated and spectacular club/bar of a type once known as a roadhouse (often out of town to avoid local laws about drinking and cavorting). The core is that the troubled and cocky Jefty, played by the inimitable Richard Widmark, wants the troubled Lily, played by a tough Ida Lupino. Widmark as the roadhouse owner is pure Widmark, so that even when he's charming he's scary, and when he's not so charming he becomes demonic. This repels Lupino, who though hard edged is decent deep down, and she falls for the nice guy, played by Cornel Wilde, who is a sweetheart with an inability to stand up for himself. This gets him, and everyone else, into trouble. The steady, downward drone of this movie from a just barely tense introduction as Lily comes to town to be the new entertainment to a love conflict and a frame up is subtle and effective. Don't look for fireworks--it's all smoke until the very end. A full hour passes before you reach the movie's one major plot twist (the bizarre parole conditions announced in the courtroom), and then the gun has finally been cocked. Now all that we wonder about is how it will go off. And Lupino. There is no one in Hollywood quite like her, one of the best women for making bitter arrogance smart and snappy. Her husky-voiced singing is far more provocative than awful, and perfect for this roadhouse in some unlikely mountain town fifteen miles from Canada. Not only is Lupino brilliant with her lines, she has brilliant lines to deliver, almost as though she invented them, they fit so well. The fourth main character, the "second woman" played by Celeste Holm (the beguiling voice-over in Letter to Three Wives), seems to have a smaller role, but she's ultimately the sensible and good gal, not as sexed up and headturning as Lupino's Lily, but steady and practical and a key to everyone's salvation in the end. The camera-work starts out as pretty straight 1940s greatness (aided by an astonishing series of period sets), with Joseph LaShelle as cinematographer building up the drama through the last half hour to some searing, dramatic face shots. The final scenes in the woods presage the similar foggy ending to Gun Crazy, which has more of a cult following (and which has visual innovations this one doesn't), and these scenes are worth the ride by themselves. Director Jean Negulesco has only a few features of note to his credit, but Road House, along with How to Marry a Millionaire and Johnny Belinda, makes a great case for his ability.It's easy to fault the film for some small things (Pete seems inexplicably powerless to fight the frameup) and even for larger ones (the romance that holds it together isn't all that convincing), but the moods and sets and lines are all great stuff. The plot has some gratuitous moments (including an exhibitionist Lupino) but taken another way they emphasize her difference from the others, her insouciance and her confidence. It's curious, and maybe defining, that the natural match between the troubled characters, the Widmark and Lupino leads, is rejected, but then Lily's shift to Pete ought to catch fire.In a way, the film's theme, of a man being overwhelmed by his wanting and expecting a woman, is defined best in Lily's matter of fact line, "Doesn't it enter a man's head that a girl can do without him?" Not usually.

This could have been a top-notch film noir classic if it wasn't for Ida Lupino's god-awful singing, made even more laughable by everyone in the film waxing rhapsodic over her re: how fabulous she was. Flat, off-key, talking thru most of it - you name it. Neither sexy nor torchy. Even the worst Grade D picture singers sound better. Can't help but feel that once again, another example of a star's ego ending up ruining what could have been a very nice little film.Cornel Wilde does his usual shtick, which rarely changes film-to-film; but as usual, Richard Widmark shines in a role that he does best.But all in all, a nice little film.