blanche-2 Oh, where to even start with this sad B movie.An ambitious young reporter who wants to get married and provide for his wife gets caught in a downpour with his fiancée. They duck into an inn. Hearing noise, they find someone in the next room dead, as well as the guy who let them in. The killer was a guy looking for money, and he had a woman with him -- they find the money, but she leaves her purse behind with her name and address inside.The reporter sets himself up as the murderer, but gives his fiancée the purse to keep to prove his innocence. He calls in the murder anonymously and then sends reports in of how it feels to be hiding and on the run from the cops.Eric Linden plays the idiot reporter who apparently never heard of hard work rather than schemes, and Dorothy Jordan, who is in for a life of misery if she marries this guy, is his fiancée.This was Bruce Cabot's first credited film, and soon after, he saved Fay Wray from King Kong.The film will remind some of the Fritz Lang film, "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt," which I happen to love. It will remind you of it, and then, hopefully, you will forget the comparison since there really isn't one.

MikeMagi Let's see if I have this right. A newspaper reporter and his girl friend are caught in a downpour. Their car is stuck in the mud so they stagger off to the nearest hostelry where they stumble on a murder. Most people would call the cops. But not our plucky newsman. He plants clues implicating himself as the killer so that he can cover the story from a unique angle. Of course, he has something that will prove his innocence. And of course...duh!!!!...that item mysteriously vanishes. Which means unless a miracle occurs, he's going to the chair. Okay, it was 1932 and movies were just learning to talk. But this has to be one of the dumbest ideas for a thriller, even for those early days. On the other hand, idiotic as it is, it's curiously entertaining.

kidboots When Wesley Ruggles put out a casting call for his movie "Are These Our Children" he found 3 bright stars. Eric Linden was given the leading role of the young braggart and won rave reviews. From then on he had a very up and down career (unfortunately mostly downs). He was dubbed "the tragic boy actor of the screen" and when given a meaty part often proved more memorable than the movie. Maybe this was the movie that started the "why don't I plant evidence so I can be convicted of the crime" cycle but films like "Circumstantial Evidence" (1936) and "Beyond Reasonable Doubt" (1956) posed serious questions about capital punishment, whereas with "The Roadhouse Murders", it was simply a novel twist to a tired mystery plot.Chick Brian (Linden) a reporter on a muck raking paper (is there any other kind) is desperate to prove himself - even surprising women in their baths to get a sensational photo. His girlfriend Mary (sweet, petite Dorothy Jordan) is the daughter of the local police chief (Purnell Pratt) and as her father is not impressed with the brash Chick, they tend to meet on the sly. One of those times, they are caught in a downpour and seek shelter at the Lame Dog Inn and within an hour are embroiled in a double murder. Even though they see the murderers, Chick thinks it would be a swell idea if he with-holds evidence and plants clues showing himself to be the murderer, then he can send the paper sensational articles about life on the run and thoughts of a wanted man. To give Mary her due, she is not keen on the idea and only falls in with her idiot boyfriend when he convinces her that all she has to do is turn up at the trial with the pocket book and it will be champagne all around.Bruce Cabot, who easily gives the most dynamic performance in the movie as the brutal thug, starts following Mary around and - yes, you guessed it, manages to steal the pocket book!! What will our intrepid dumb-cluck do now!!! Even before Chick is caught, life on the run is taking it's toll - he starts to feel hunted and guilty!!!This was Linden's 4th movie. Even though he was versatile, his first 2 films gave him parts that were abrasive braggarts, in this he was a cocky upstart and with the next one "The Age of Consent" you guessed it - he wasn't the sensitive hero but "Duke" who loved fast cars and fast women, so is it any wonder his star faded so quickly. The maid's role was filled by the uncredited Julie Haydon - films didn't do right by her so she went to Broadway, to be the muse of George Jean Nathan and Noel Coward.

rduchmann Reporter stumbles upon murder scene and gets the harebrained idea of framing himself for it. This will allow him to write a great human interest story about the thoughts and feelings of a man being hunted by the police. And of course he can prove that he didn't do it, when the time comes. And of course he winds up in much too close proximity to the electric chair. (What his cute g.f. Dorothy Jordan sees in this loser is a mystery to me.) The plot is as silly here as in nearly every other variation of the one where some moron frames himself for murder with good intentions, but Jordan is perky and helps carry the film in one of her bigger RKO roles. Seeing her name in the credits was the primary reason I watched this picture.Despite the story problems, picture is also well made by director J Walter Ruben (this was the second film of his that I had ever seen). Ruben and his films are largely forgotten, but he was one of the first writer-director double threats of the sound era, working nearly a decade at RKO before moving over to MGM where he produced but only occasionally directed, before his premature death in the early 1940s. Most of his films are well worth seeking out. TROUBLE FOR TWO, based on Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Suicide Club," is outstanding.