Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

filmklassik Widmark plays the smiling, genial owner of the eponymous establishment, and best pal to nice guy Wilde. But there are signs of lurking psychosis behind Widmark's hail-fellow exterior. Celeste Holm (marvelous) plays the club's bookkeeper who's secretly in love with her boss. Widmark, however, can't see her as anything more than a friend. Into their lives comes cynical chanteuse Ida Lupino who Widmark hires as club entertainer. She hasn't much of a voice, but she sells her numbers anyway, in her own smoky fashion, and the crowd falls hard. So does Wilde. And it's mutual. Problem is, Widmark loves her too - a lot - and, wracked by jealousy, he's not about to let the smitten young couple go running off into the sunset.This is one fantastic noir, with superlative acting, inspired direction, good dialogue, and a first-rate story... for about an hour. The last 30 minutes go right off the rails. Or rather, off the "road." Like a lot of thrillers produced since movies began, this one doesn't know how to end. It's hard to imagine a less satisfying finale to a movie that held such promise. 10 out of 10 for the first 60 minutes - 2 out of 10 for the rest.My score: 7

jacobs-greenwood Screen written by producer Edward Chodorov, it stars Ida Lupino, Cornel Wilde, Celeste Holm and Richard Widmark (in his third film), and was directed by Jean Negulesco. The title was unfortunately reused for a Patrick Swayze –vehicle some 40 years later, so I thought that reviewing this classic might help those who've only seen the 1989 movie to forget.Although it features a now clichéd storyline – two friends from different backgrounds, one wealthy and another from a poorer family, that grew up from childhood through surviving a war together, end up clashing over the same woman as adults – Road House (1948) is film noir drama that will hold one's interest and is worth a look because of its stars' performances.The story, written by Margaret Gruen and Oscar Saul, was photographed by cinematographer Joseph LaShelle, who'd won his Academy Award four years earlier for filming Otto Preminger's Laura (1944) which, like this one, had a small but memorable cast. While there are a few other supporting players – such as an Arthur O'Connell lookalike (O.Z. Whitehead) playing a character that's aptly named Art, an uncredited Jack Lee as the dependable bartender Sam, and Ray Teal as (you guessed it) a policeman – the screen-time is dominated by the four principals.The film is set in the fictional small town of Elton (west of Chicago and not too far south of the Canadian border), population 14,270. The locale where most of the plot takes place is Jefty's Road House, an establishment outside of the one hotel town that features a restaurant, a bar, a bowling alley, and a décor that includes antlers (which is also the name of the hotel) and other hunter paraphernalia of its owner, Jefferson T. 'Jefty' Robbins (Widmark). It's managed by athletically-built Pete Morgan (Wilde), a former state bowling champion, who used to be a pin boy with his rich friend Jefty (at his father's alley).Enter Lily Stevens (Lupino), the latest in a long line of 'talent' that Jefty met during a drunken weekend in the Windy City; apparently, he woos the ladies by promising them a gig in his 'nightclub'. But when Jefty tires of them, it's Pete's job to "send them back where they came from". However, Lily doesn't fit the mold for two reasons – Jefty has yet to successfully overwhelm her with his charms AND she actually has talent or, as cashier Susie Smith (Holm) remarks, "she does more without a voice than anybody I've ever heard".Holm, in only her fourth film, plays a role that would become somewhat stereotypical for her – a part that Joan Blondell made famous – a sassy gal whose love is taken for granted by the movie's hunk (Wilde) and is therefore destined to fade into the background when the femme fatale (Lupino) arrives on the scene. True to form, she's got a "heart of gold" such that she becomes the new couple's ally when needed.Upset that Jefty has promised to pay Lily an inordinate amount ($250 per week for 6 weeks) which cuts into his profits (hence pay), Pete tries to force her to leave town before she's even sung her first torch song. But she's a tough streetwise road weary gal that's tired of drifting and ready to stay in one place for a while, hence her acceptance of Jefty's offer without the usual (sexual) reciprocals.Sure that his normal attributes will eventually win her over though, Jefty confidently puts Lily in the company of the muscle-bound Pete, whom he has to practically threaten to get to teach her to bowl. Naturally, Lily is quickly attracted to Jefty's more physically attractive friend, but her attempts to get Pete to play house with her are resisted until two things happen: Jefty leaves town for a week of moose hunting at his cabin in the wilderness AND a burly drunk named Dutch – who decides that the sexy singer is for him, during one of her more seductive songs – starts a bar brawl that causes Pete to 'fight for' and rescue Lily. After that, Pete succumbs and the two begin to make plans for a life together.However, when Jefty returns, he's made up his mind to marry Lily; he's even gone so far as to obtain a marriage license which he shows to Pete. But after Pete tells Jefty that he and Lily are in love and that they're planning to get married, Jefty becomes very angry. When Pete and Lily decide to leave town to elope, Jefty has them picked up by the police at the railroad station. Pete has been framed for robbery by Jefty; he is arrested, jailed and later convicted for the bogus charge, and sentenced to 2-10 years for the crime.But Jefty had convinced the judge to allow Pete to serve probation, under his care so that he could control his friend's relationship with Lily. Shortly after this, 'we' are treated to the cruel laugh that helped Widmark earn an Oscar nomination in his film debut as Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death (1947).But the additional illogical and contrived events that follow lessen rather than enhance what remains in this melodrama – instinctively most moviegoers will know that someone is going to die (and who) – though the aforementioned characters' traits are reinforced and refined: Lupino's is tough, Holm's is helpful, Widmark's is psychotic etc..

kapelusznik18 ***SPOILERS***It's when sultry Chicago night club singer Lily Stevens, Ida Lupino, showed at at the Jefty Robbins, Eichard Widmark, roadhouse on the US/Canadian border sparks started flying in all directions. Not only between Jefty Robbins and his friend, who manages the roadhouse, Pete Morgan, Cornel Wild, but also the customers there as well. In one scene as Lily was doing her act a drunken and uncouth Mister Bacigalupi tried to manhandle her with Pete rushing to her rescue. It was the very over-matched Pete, whom Bacigalupi outweighed by at least 50 pounds, who was about to finish him off that a squad of police came to arrest and apprehend the helpless drunk. That was just one of many violent incidents that Lily, just by her presence, cause in the film with many more to follow.What really got things rolling was when Jefty was out hunting moose and deer that his friend & partner Pete began a hot and heavy romantic affair with Lily behind Jefty's, who considered her to be his personal property,back. With Pete who was soon to marry Lily trying to square himself with Jefty who unknown to Pete had, in order to surprise Lily, already taken out a marriage licenses to marry her that the at first normal and joke cracking Jefty turned completely psycho! So psycho that he not only went so far as to frame his good friend Pete in stealing the roadhouse weekly receipts, $2,600.00, but blackmail his cashier and behind the scene squeeze Susie Smith, Celeste Holm, for participating in the robbery. In what was to be the trial of the century, in that part of the woods, Pete got the book thrown at him for robbery, the charges against Susie were eventually dropped, by Judge Grandon Rhodes. With him handing down a stiff 2 to year jail sentence on the totally shocked down to his socks Pete who didn't quite what hit him! That in him seeing just how far his "good friend" Pete would go to frame him. ***SPOILERS*** Just when you, as well as Pete Lily & Susie, thought things couldn't get any worse they in fact did. With a now feeling invincible Jefty making a deal with Judge Rhodes to release Pete on parole just to show what a nice guy he really is and then keeping him as well as his lover Lily under this thumb which in fact, as were all soon to see, is even worse then spending the next 2 to 10 years behind bars! It's here when Jefty overplayed his hand and in the end got exactly all that was coming to him. And it was non other then the woman that he loved and wanted to keep all to himself, like the trophies of antlers he had in his roadhouse, Lily Stevens that finally and reluctantly put an end to his total insanity! P.S There's also the added treat of seeing and hearing Ida Lupion, Lily Stevens, belting out two great songs in the movie "Quater to Three" and what came to be its theme song "Again".

nomoons11 Any time you got Richard Widmark in a noir you know you got trouble...and he delivers...yet againI think there were really only ever 2 really bad or evil characters in noir and they were...Richard Widmark and John Garfield. These guys consistently portrayed flawed and rotten characters but Widmark was about as mean and nasty as they came. He was the master of the loathsome worm -like guy who always made it miserable for every other character but his own.Jefty is a guy who owns a Road House and his best friend from childhood runs the joint. He comes back from Chicago with another girl he deems great to sing at his place at an inflated rate. His friend thinks it's another of his crush's but low and behold...she can sing. Jefty has the hots for her but she has no interest in him...only his friend. Now Jefty is a fairly nice guy but when the news is delivered they love each other, he doesn't take to it very well. After this, it's go time for Richard Widmark and his trademark Mr. Evil character to blossom...and man does it.Trust me folks, if you want sheer evil in film you should see just about any noir Widmark ever did. He shoulda done film class 101 on scumbags on film and how to do em. In this one, you'll cringe at what he does in the second half of this film.Sit back and wait for the payoff in this noir gem...it'll most certainly be worth your wait.