List Price: $14.98You Pay Only: $10.49 You Save: $4.49 (30%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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
Sales Rank: 7467
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Theatrical Release Date: 1948
Related Items:
Editorial Review:
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:  - Another good film noir
Ah, the joy of an old film noir! It's wonderful to watch a crime
story without being offended by gory, bloody scenes and shocking language of present-day Hollywood movies. I recommend this film
also for the pleasure of watching great movie stars at their best
and looking soooo young!
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 and employee Pete Morgan. Jefty will imagine an ingenious scheme to get his revenge. ROAD HOUSE is a film I've always enjoyed very much for years. I particularly like the first part of the movie until Pete Morgan's trial. Ida Lupino clearly overshadows Cornel Wilde, Celeste Holm and Richard Widmark then with her hoarse voice and her sexy wardrobe. I also like a lot the bowling lesson given to her by Cornel Wilde. The last part of ROAD HOUSE is more outdated and the final game hunting reminded me at times of The Most Dangerous Game - Criterion Collection. But, all in all, I highly recommend ROAD HOUSE, a film that will defintively stay in ma library.
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 Jeffty's smoldering jealousy slowly build, finally erupting into full-fledged psychosis at the end of the film that makes this a movie worth re-watching, and owning.
But the reason I'm writing this review is as a kind of counter-weight to a prissy pseudo-intellectual response to the commentary another viewer has posted. Eddie Muller and Kim Morgan know and give a lot of insightful back-story on the production of Road House, and the life and careers of the cast and crew. The problem this Stellhorn character seems to be having is simple: they're actually watching and enjoying the film! And yes, they'll be telling a story about Widmark or Lupino, and stop to say something like, "Oh, look at THAT!"
To me, the biggest sin one can commit while doing a commentary is simply not watching the movie. And, unfortunately, noir has been subjected to an endless parade of academics sitting there and reading from their long-winded notes, and just never looking up at the screen. They're more interested in their own Theories and Opinions about why the film is important to "the noir cycle" than they are in the movie. I suspect most of them would never have become interested in the films themselves in the first place if the French hadn't legitimized them.
Noir Directors and ... 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 boring together. Richard Widmark is always priceless. The consummate bad guy that you just love to hate. I could watch this movie over and over and over.
Browse for similar items by category:
|
