La femme aux cigarettes

Road House (1948)

Road House is in some ways a straight up romance with noir stylizing. The setting is great, out in some isolated and spectacular club/bar of a type once known as a roadhouse (often out of town to avoid local laws about drinking and cavorting). The core is that the troubled and cocky Jefty, played by the inimitable Richard Widmark, wants the troubled Lily, played by a tough Ida Lupino. Widmark as the roadhouse owner is pure Widmark, so that even when he's charming he's scary, and when he's not so charming he becomes demonic. This repels Lupino, who though hard edged is decent deep down, and she falls for the nice guy, played by Cornel Wilde, who is a sweetheart with an inability to stand up for himself. This gets him, and everyone else, into trouble.

The steady, downward drone of this movie from a just barely tense introduction as Lily comes to town to be the new entertainment to a love conflict and a frame up is subtle and effective. Don't look for fireworks--it's all smoke until the very end. A full hour passes before you reach the movie's one major plot twist (the bizarre parole conditions announced in the courtroom), and then the gun has finally been cocked. Now all that we wonder about is how it will go off.

And Lupino. There is no one in Hollywood quite like her, one of the best women for making bitter arrogance smart and snappy. Her husky-voiced singing is far more provocative than awful, and perfect for this roadhouse in some unlikely mountain town fifteen miles from Canada. Not only is Lupino brilliant with her lines, she has brilliant lines to deliver, almost as though she invented them, they fit so well. The fourth main character, the "second woman" played by Celeste Holm (the beguiling voice-over in Letter to Three Wives), seems to have a smaller role, but she's ultimately the sensible and good gal, not as sexed up and headturning as Lupino's Lily, but steady and practical and a key to everyone's salvation in the end.

The camera-work starts out as pretty straight 1940s greatness (aided by an astonishing series of period sets), with Joseph LaShelle as cinematographer building up the drama through the last half hour to some searing, dramatic face shots. The final scenes in the woods presage the similar foggy ending to Gun Crazy, which has more of a cult following (and which has visual innovations this one doesn't), and these scenes are worth the ride by themselves. Director Jean Negulesco has only a few features of note to his credit, but Road House, along with How to Marry a Millionaire and Johnny Belinda, makes a great case for his ability.

It's easy to fault the film for some small things (Pete seems inexplicably powerless to fight the frameup) and even for larger ones (the romance that holds it together isn't all that convincing), but the moods and sets and lines are all great stuff. The plot has some gratuitous moments (including an exhibitionist Lupino) but taken another way they emphasize her difference from the others, her insouciance and her confidence. It's curious, and maybe defining, that the natural match between the troubled characters, the Widmark and Lupino leads, is rejected, but then Lily's shift to Pete ought to catch fire.

In a way, the film's theme, of a man being overwhelmed by his wanting and expecting a woman, is defined best in Lily's matter of fact line, "Doesn't it enter a man's head that a girl can do without him?" Not usually.

The main attraction here are the amazing performances by Ida Lupino, and Richard Widmark. Jean Negulesco was able to capture it all in this tale of passion gone wrong.

Lily Stevens arrives at Jefty's Road House to entertain in the lounge area. Jefty, has offered her 250 a week, a sum that in Pete Morgan's estimation is a lot more than the place can afford. Pete offers money to send Lily back to Chicago because he senses she will bring chaos between him and Jefty, the man who has been generous to him and who, he feels, will fall again for this chanteuse of mysterious origins.

Thus begins one of the best films of that era. It's a noir because of the elements, but actually it might be considered a semi-noir since it's not an obvious one.

Ida Lupino had a way for 'talking' her songs at the Road House. She had a style that got to the lounge patrons that heard her sing. Her interpretation of "It's a quarter to three" is done faultlessly. Her voice, a combination of alcohol and the cigarettes she positions at the piano's lid while singing, contribute to create a portrait of the sultry woman she is. She sings "Again" twice; her rendition of that song makes it impossible for anyone else to sing it without comparing it to what Ms. Lupino did with it, much better!

Richard Widmark was the favorite looney in the 40s. His acting was always an exercise on intensity. He always played the weird roles on the screen. In "Road House" he appears almost normal until he realizes that Lily will never love him. He has to get his revenge on Pete who has stolen Lily's affection away from him. Jefty will stop at nothing in order to get her back. Thus he accuses Pete Morgan, his loyal friend, of stealing the week's receipts.

Cornel Wilde plays a passive role as Pete. He too falls for the charms of Lily, but at the same time, Lily wants him because she sees in him her own salvation from joints and a ticket to a normal life. Celeste Holm is the other principal. Her role is not as well defined. She should be resentful of Lily, but she is a kind soul who accepts the fact that Pete never loved her. Ultimately, she is the one who solves the puzzle of the missing money.

"Road House" should be seen more often.

This was a very interesting character study of three people: "LIly Stevens" (Ida Lupino), "Jefty Robbins" (Richard Widmark) and "Pete Morgan" (Cornel Wilde).

The two guys are attracted to Lupino, who prefers good-guy Wilde. The scorned Widmark then gets his revenge. This film was a year after Widmark played sadistic killer "Tommy Udo" in "Kiss Of Death" and his character in this movie isn't too far removed from Udo. In both films, Widmark provides the spark when the story needed it.

That's not to say the rest of the cast isn't good, too, but Widmark playing these psycho villains is just fascinating and just stands out. Another fine thespian is Celeste Holm, who also is in this picture but with a role that did not stand out. I can't even remember what she did in here, although it's been awhile since I've seen this. Hopefully, this film noir will be issued on DVD some day.

This is made with enough memorable pieces - the 'road house' in the small Midwest town, the torch singer fresh from Chicago who comes to upset the sleepy routine, the two men, owner and manager of the joint, who lust after her - that it would have been something to see regardless of who was in it.

Someone like Gene Tierney or Rita Hayworth would have been equal parts fierce and coquettish in navigating their private wants against the male desire that threatens to create a narrative that engulfs them. That would have been fine and the film worth watching.

But we got Ida Lupino instead, that whirlwind of softly indomitable spirit. I had heard enough about her in my various travels through film, always in context of trailblazing individualism, and have even seen her in a couple of films before. But for whatever reason, this was the first time I was so profoundly captivated by her talent that from now on, she's forever celebrated in my house.

Going by what she achieves here, she should be rightfully mentioned on par with Cagney, that other whirlwind of intelligent presence. It's an ability to float past obvious limits of a narrative, and from there inhabit a self who can freely enter the story, play and improvise on that edge, that makes her unerringly modern. In this case she gives us the soulful ingenue, the one required by the story, but at her choosing, and the next morning freely becomes someone who just wants to look around and explore.

Just look how her ability to shift what she inhabits in an easy and free manner makes the whole context of a scene shift. The scene with going up to the pond for a swim is written for her character to impress Wilde's as not just a stuck-up singer from Chicago. But the way she plays it turns it into she's there for a swim and shucks if he's impressed. Maybe she likes him, but she'll be fine either way.

She's so marvelous in the first half of this (which is largely devoted to her and her romance), you forget you're watching a film noir of the time. It's like watching an actor from 20 years later, a Nouvelle Vague woman. She manages to make the whole transcend and had me feeling what it would be like if more studio pictures of the time were allowed to simply follow along with contemporary life on the streets. We'd have to wait for Cassavetes to start that ball rolling and then onwards to Altman and the others. Ida would have made a dreamy collaborator in those years and would have flourished and shined all the more as both actor and filmmaker.

But this is still a film noir, which means succumbing to narrative controlled by selfish desire. In this case Richard Widmark is not happy that she chose his helping hand around the club; so he conspires to create a vengeful narrative that entraps all three, and no less his own self. The setting for this part is a remote cabin in the woods.

In a great scene the two lovers, looking glum now, sit across the table from each other overseen by Widmark at the head, as if the whole world has shifted to something other than real. Widmark, that early Jack Nicholson of film, deserves a standing ovation himself for all he achieved; not once has his usual mode of seething, petulant menace failed to enhance a film all the more.

The resolutions are predictable and really the last part of of the film is, but it's still decent noir. Taken as a whole, it's a rich primary text and wholly deserves the visit.

The movie doesn't really take off until the last third when Widmark (Jefty) gets angry at last. And every fan of noir knows what happens when Widmark starts losing it. No one before or since can equal that deranged giggle, and here it's worth waiting for. Just watch his little William Tell sporting event with Lupino (Lilly) in that nightmare forest where no birds sing or deer roam. In fact, what I like best is the art department's contribution. That road house interior is a real eye-catcher, sort of a post-war mix of woodsy cabin and singles recreation center where actual people set up bowling pins while a hulking brute wrecks everything else.

Great role for Lupino. She gets to do her hard case with a soft heart as a torch singer all the way from big city Chicago. Her raspy rendition of One More for the Road is a riveting one-of- a-kind and in her own voice too. (What an immensely talented woman, and why did Hollywood never honor her for that.) Lilly's problem is not one man but two. But then by the time she slips into those white short-shorts, we know she's decided on Wilde whose manly chest no doubt has something to do with it. The trouble is that leaves Widmark as odd-man- out and we know what that means. Question-- What's the point of Susie's (Celeste Holm) role in the movie? Maybe I missed something.

Anyhow, it's an atmospheric 90 minutes, complete with rainy streets, smoky rooms, and that gloomy forest from heck. The movie may not rise to noir classic, but in the meantime, it'll sure do.