Roadhouse Nights

His editor is trying to track down Joe King, out investigating a big shipment of booze coming in over Lake Michigan. He doesn't know that King has been killed by Fred Kohler, who runs a local road house, has killed the local chief of police and taken over the town, so he sends Charles Ruggles to find out what's going on. What Ruggles discovers is that his old girlfriend from Kenosha, Helen Morgan, is singing at Kohler's roadhouse, and they get on together like a house on fire, while Kohler grows steadily more suspicious.

If you're looking for a movie based on Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest, this isn't it, despite the credits. Screenwriter and former Chicago newsman Ben Hecht has crafted an entirely new story, and it's a pretty good one at that, even if the pacing is a tad slow. Besides hearing Miss Morgan sing a blues number, you also get to see Clayton, Jackson & Durante doing a couple of their chaotic numbers.

Helen Morgan stars here as Lola, a roadhouse singer who gets involved with her boss Sam (Fred Kohler) who is a gangster. He's a bootlegger and possibly the murderer of a nosy reporter (Joe King). On the trail of the missing reporter is Willie (Charlie Ruggles), a reporter who was once Lola's childhood sweetie back home. Willie pretends to be a barfly while he gathers information. He and Lola team up.

Against this dramatic action, there is a comedy act. It's the famous Clayton, Jackson & Durante headed up by none other than Jimmy Durante.

When Lola and Willie try to escape, they are trailed by Sam. A flat tire ends the escape attempt. Willie pretends to be drunk again and makes a phone call to his city editor. While appearing to be drunk he actually uses his ring to tap a coded messages to the newspaper.

This early talkie is notable for several reasons. Star Helen Morgan sings "It Can't Go on Like This" twice in her follow up to the sensational APPLAUSE (1929). This is her last starring role in a film.

This film was written by Ben Hecht, based on a novel by Dashiell Hammett. And this is the only film appearance of Durante (his film debut) and his partners, a comedy team that starred in vaudeville. Durante would go solo soon after this film.

The film captures the seedy roadhouse atmosphere quite well.

After I watched this film, I read the IMDB page for it. I was shocked to see that Helen Morgan was only 30 when she made the movie, as I thought she was about 50! This is likely because Morgan was an alcoholic and ultimately died when she was 41...a very sad loss.

In the film, the heavy drinker is Willie (Charlie Ruggles). He's a newspaper reporter who spends most of his time frequenting various speakeasies. Despite this, he's an honest guy and excellent reporter.

In this story, Willie meets up with an old sweetie, Lola (Morgan) and she's working in a place owned by a mobster, Sam Horner. Willie spends much of the movie trying to get Lola to leave this job as she doesn't realize just how evil Sam is. But she does know enough to be afraid of the man...and what he'll do if she skidaddles.

In addition to Morgan and Ruggles, Jimmy Durante appears in this, his first film. He's fun...as you'd expect for Durante...but the interesting story seems to be what I remember most from the movie. An interesting and tough film.

I admit I have not seen this film, so cannot review it; but in researching Hammet's "Red Harvest", and in reading the review by F Gwynplaine MacIntyre here, I was utterly shocked. Of course this film, as MacIntyre describes it, cannot possibly be based on Hammett's whirlwind-of-evil crime novel, one of the most violent in the annals of crime fiction in America, one of the most pessimistic, and one of the most obviously assaultive on the capitalist system that permits such systematic corruption as described in Hammett's book. Charles Ruggles?! God save us.

Here is a list of many of the films actually based on the Hammett novel (although none actually credits it as source material!): Yojombo (Japan, Akira Kurosawa); Fistfull of Dollars (Italy-Spain, Sergio Leone); Last Man Standing (US, Walter Hill); Miller's Crossing (US, Coen Brothers); Omega Doom (US/ British/ Taiwan); Gun Crazy: Woman from Nowhere (Japan); Cold Harvest (US/ Australia/ Israel); Mad Max (Australia, starring Mel Gibson); El Mariachi (Mexico, Robert Roderiguez); Single Action (Mexico).

Films influenced by this novel (or its film versions): practically every 'chop-socky' kung fu film made in Hong Kong during the 1970s; almost every 'Spaghetti Weswtern' made in Italy or Spain during the 1960s and 1970s; every film influenced by Mad Max (virtually a genre in itself in the 1980s) (but this also includes, however loosely, the two "Escape From" films from John Carpenter); 'film noir' of the French New Wave (especially Godard's "Alphaville") (also includes Melville's "Samurai" thus including Woo's Melville influenced "the Killer"); Ringo Lam's "Full Contact - well, let's face it the list just goes on and on.

Thus possibly the single most influential novel for fans of action cinema. Yet when Hollywood had it in hand, with Hammet still alive for consultation, they make a quasi-comedy starring - Charles Ruggles?! No wonder real lovers of cinema find Hollywood an expensive, popular, but ultimately trivial, joke! My God! - I'm glad I never saw this.

Read the novel! See all the other films! You will not be disappointed!

... in fact it was his first film role. After this film he got a contract with MGM and stayed there for a good long while. But that's another story.

This is a 1930 Paramount featuring Charlie Ruggles as a newspaper reporter (who spends a lot of time posing as a tippler) investigating a small nightclub run by a notorious bootlegger ready to bump off anyone threatening his operations.

Fred Kohler, he of the gruff "Oh, yehhh?" school of tough guy acting, plays the bootlegger boss who carries a gun and does much of his own dispatching, while singer Helen Morgan gets top billing as a singer (what else?) in Kohler's roadhouse who was sweeties once upon a time with Ruggles years before they took up their current occupations.

Morgan sings a song or two in this one, though, nothing, unfortunately, of great note. Her memorable warbling and performance in Show Boat were still six years away.

One of the film's most pleasant surprises is the presence of Jimmy Durante, only this time he's part of a three man act called Clayton, Jackson and Durante. Durante is clearly the star of the act and, for those who enjoy the Great Schnozzola, he scores well in this film. "It's the gallows, the gallows," he keeps saying, in reference to the cutthroats that run the rough roadhouse in which he and Morgan both work.

Durante vaudeville partner Lou Clayton would die in 1950 but Eddie Jackson would later appear with Durante on television in The Jimmy Durante Show in 1954. This is the only film made in which the three vaudeville partners can be seen together.

The film has a certain primitive power, though it is, at times, a crudely filmed early talkie. (The tops of heads of actors are frequently cut off in the camera shot). The legendary Ben Hecht is credited as scenarist, and the film does have some of the hard bitten style that you would associate with him.