La femme aux cigarettes

Richard Widmark, Ida Lupino, Cornel Wilde and Celeste Holm are all in the "Road House," a 1948 film noir directed by Jean Negulesco. Widmark, fresh from his career-making role of Tommy Udo, plays Jefty, who owns a road house. His friend from the service, Wilde, runs the place. Jefty is gone on Lily (Lupino) but can't get to first base and hires her as a singer. Unfortunately, she falls for Pete. Jefty frames Pete for robbery to keep him and Lily from leaving town to get married, and then arranges with the judge to have Pete paroled to him. To say he's up to something is an understatement.

The revelation here is Lupino as a sexy torch singer. She does her own singing here, husky, seductive, very stylized and smoking. She's wonderful. Widmark is vicious as only Widmark could be, and Wilde repeats his "Leave Her to Heaven" nice guy as victim role. Celeste Holm looks great and does her usual excellent job as a woman attracted to Pete who takes pity on him and Lily just the same.

My only criticism is that there is a scene where Lily turns on the radio to a classical station where a soprano is singing "Einsam im Truben Tagen." She tells Pete that she studied opera, and her father had great ambition for her. With that whiskey and cigarette soaked set of vocal cords - I doubt it.

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.

Lupino gives a premier league performance. Take her rendition of "One for My Baby, One More For The Road": it's an object lesson in how a conventionally beautiful voice is NOT required in order to triumph as a singer. Although she croaks the number rather than sings it, she acts it as if the character has felt every ounce of suffering in the lyric - and then some.

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.

When the Chicago singer Lily Stevens (Ida Lupino) arrives at the Jefty Road House hired by the owner Jefferson T. 'Jefty' Robbins (Richard Widmark), the manager Pete Morgan (Cornel Wilde) gives a cold reception to her. Jefty asks Pete, who is his best friend, to drive Lily to the local hotel. However Pete drives her to the train station instead and asks Lily to go back to Chicago. She refuses to go and her performance is successful in her debut. Soon Pete changes his opinion towards Lily and the accountant and cashier Susie Smith (Celeste Holm) informs that the public has increased not only in the roadhouse, but also in the bowling alley. Jefty feels attraction for Lily, but when he travels, Lily and Pete fall in love with each other. When Jefty returns, he brings a marriage license and proposes Lily; however she dumps him and Pete and she decide to travel to Chicago and leave the town. However Jefty frames Pete and reports a hake theft to the police. Pete is arrested and found guilty by the jury. However Jefty proposes to the judge that Pete continues to work for him instead of going to the prison. What is the intention of Jefty?

"Road House" is an engaging film–noir with a storyline of unrequited love and obsession. Ida Lupino has an impressive performance, singing with a wonderful husky voice. The first performance of the famous song "Again" is the soundtrack of "Road Movie" sang by Ida Lupino. This film is also the third appearance of the outstanding Richard Widmark and his insane smile on the cinema. Cornel Wilde and Celeste Holm complete the dream cast of this unknown gem. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "A Taverna do Caminho" ("The Tavern on the Way")