Robert J. Maxwell Actually, in real life people rarely are driven nuts by frustration. They go nuts and then they try to find some reason for it. Not that it matters in this case. In 1948 Richard Widmark had a patent on a certain kind of maniac, the kind that giggles as he kills.He begins normally enough. Well, normal for Widmark anyway. He's the impulsive owner of Jefty's Road House near the Canadian border, an undistinguished place with deer heads on the wall. Cornel Wilde is his junior partner and Celeste Holm is the cashier.Widmark brings home a singer, Ida Lupino, whom he picked up on one of his jaunts to the city. He has designs on her. Wilde wants to get rid of her but in fact she turns out to be a terrific success. It's hard to see how because Lupino's voice is neither dubbed nor good. It's full of cracks and sounds smoke cured from years of Chesterfields. Well, okay, nobody ever accused Diana Krall of having an operatic voice and she's not a sex bomb either but Krall can at least play the piano while Lupino's skill is limited to the rudimentary.Come to think of it, everybody smokes in this movie -- a lot. If it were to be remade, nobody would smoke because it's now politically incorrect to show cigarettes in use. Guns -- yes. There'd be blood and brains all over the place in a remake, but no tobacco. First things first.At any rate, Widmark goes away for a week's hunting and guess what happens in his absence? When he returns, he's determined to marry Lupino. He has the marriage license in his pocket. At this point, it's easy to feel sorry for the deluded Widmark character. His friendship with Wilde aside, it's the first sign of maturity that he's shown. Still, it's Wilde's unpleasant duty to tell Widmark that he's out of the picture.Widmark, resignation not being his strong suit, frames Wilde for grand larceny and convinces the judge that Wilde should be paroled to him, Widmark. The judge concurs. I didn't even know you could do that -- I mean that a judge could decide on his own that a convicted man could be turned over to another ordinary citizen as a kind of slave.And a slave is what the sullen Wilde now becomes. He's restored to his earlier position only at a lesser income. He can't slug Widmark. He can't even talk back. And Lupino is tied to Widmark through her love for Wilde. Celeste Holm has the unenviable task of being the good, sensible girl whom nobody wants.Finally, at a cabin in the woods, Widmark goes bananas and after being beaten senseless by Wilde -- he was rude to Lupino -- he grabs a pistol and chases Wilde and Lupino through the forest as they make for the Canadian border. Here the film could have used some location shooting. Studio forests are rarely convincing. There's never any wind, the greenery looks phony and repetitive, and sometimes there are echoes where there should be no echoes. There are instances, though, when studio forests become so stylized as to be -- not convincing -- but at least honest in their falsity. "Battleground" and "Bataan" are examples.Wilde is the nominal hero but he's pretty routine. The character is so straight that he's uninvolving. Lupino's role is more textured. She's had a "past," as they say, and she's a willful and complicated babe. She's skinny and vulnerable but tough enough to belt Wilde when he tries to hustle her out of town with a few bucks. Widmark's character is by far the most interesting. A little unbalanced at the beginning, he turns crafty and bitter before he loses it altogether. There's a good deal of pathos in the character.I don't know if this is a "noir," though it's very dark. A woman comes between two men, but nobody slinks around the city streets and there is no sneaky betrayal by anyone. There's no city at all. The town near which Widmark's road house is located has a population of about 14,000, and we don't see much of it beyond the hotel and the police station. Jean Negulesco's direction is pat. The musical arrangements are by Herbert Spencer, and I thought he'd been dead for years.

classicsoncall Not only was Ida Lupino a first rate actress, but a pretty shrewd businesswoman as well. She purchased the rights to "Road House" for twenty thousand dollars, then wound up with a tidy sum of a hundred thirty grand for signing on with RKO to do the picture. Now that's putting some credibility in 'One For My Baby'.You know, I could watch Richard Widmark all day doing that maniacal laugh of his. It's great when he builds up to it like he does here, starting out as the somewhat absentee owner of Jefty's Road House, right through the complicated relationship that develops between himself, singer Lily Stevens (Lupino) and business manager Pete Morgan (Cornel Wilde). It's like he's building on his Tommy Udo character from 1947's "Kiss of Death", Widmark's first film role.Yet on the flip side, there's not a whole lot about this story that makes sense if set in the real world, particularly as it relates to that jury trial over the stolen money. How does the plaintiff get to go into the judge's chambers to seek clemency for the defendant? Didn't these guys have lawyers? And what about the 'proof' Susie claims she found when she spots the business envelope that contained the missing money? So? It was an envelope that Jefty had on him - why wouldn't he? He owned the business! But to get even that far, you had to take it on faith that the police captain never even considered that Jefty might have been setting up his manager. You could go around in circles all night like this and not make sense of the story.But, and this is the significant but, all of this is set in a noir world that sucks the viewer in with it's flawed femme fatale with the gravel voice and the mugs who want her. So you're willing to overlook the credibility defying moments, and just go along for the ride for the final payoff. Along the way you get Widmark and Wilde in that great bar room brawl, and Ida Lupino makin' it for her baby with one more for the road.

Neil Doyle What stands out in ROAD HOUSE, despite the lurid melodramatics of the plot, is RICHARD WIDMARK doing his standard psychopathic job once he discovers his love life has been compromised when IDA LUPINO and CORNEL WILDE fall in love with each other. Widmark takes full advantage of his character's sudden turn from nice guy to a man consumed by cunning jealousy, trapping Wilde into a charge of theft that almost puts the victimized man into prison.Widmark gets the judge to suspend sentence and has Wilde's parole placed under his management. At this point, the plot becomes wildly melodramatic and churns up the heat for the last twenty minutes of explosive emotional fireworks. The fight scenes between Widmark and Wilde are artfully staged and look painfully realistic.Widmark and Lupino dominate the film with forceful work, full of intensity. Wilde is impressively quiet but determined and looks like he'd make a good bouncer at any bar. CELESTE HOLM has more of an onlooker role that does nothing for her career but does about as well as she can with a nothing part.Jean Negulesco has done much better work in other melodramas (notably JOHNNY BELINDA). Here, he directs the film well but lets the melodrama get a bit too overwrought by the time the film winds toward a conclusion. It's not one of his best films.Ida Lupino's husky voice is barely able to wobble through a few good song numbers, which makes her nightclub scenes a little ludicrous. It's one thing to have a throaty voice for standard pop tunes sung in a husky manner, but Lupino's vocals suffer from her one-note monotone delivery.

Bacardi1 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.