Road House (1948)

Road House At Noir City, D.C.

The annual Noir City, D.C. Festival presented by the Film Noir Foundation returned to the big screen at the AFI Silver Theater after a year away due to the pandemic. I was eager to return to the Festival over the past weekend. I have become an admirer of film noir over the past several years, and I badly missed the Festival.

Today, the Festival presented this 1948 film "Road House" which stars Ida Lupino, perennial bad guy Richard Widmark, and Cornel Wilde. The "Czar of Noir" and the Founder of the Film Noir Foundation, Eddie Muller, introduced the movie which was presented in a 35 mm print.

The story is set in a rural roadhouse, which includes a nightclub and a bowling alley, near the Canadian border. The proprietor, Jefty, (Widmark) has just hired a new singer from Chicago, Lily (Lupino). Both Widmark and his manager and boyhood friend Pete (Wilde) develop a strong passion for Lily. When she chooses Pete, the psychotic Jefty goes off the rails.He engineers a frame-up for a robbery followed by cascading violence, culminating in a shadowy scene in the woods two miles from Canada.

With the woman leading character, the film differs from most film noirs of the day. Ida Lupino is the highlight of this melodramatic story as she plays her role with style and passion. The best scenes occur with Lupino in the road house as she plays the piano and sings "One for my Baby (and One More for the Road)" and "Again" Neither the voice nor the piano were dubbed. They both are show-stopping numbers which succeed by virtue of Lupino's ability to present herself more than by the quality of her voice.

"Road House" is classic 1940s film noir. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to see the film in a beautiful theater at a Noir Festival, coming at what let us hope is the end of a pandemic, in the company of other lovers of film noir.

Robin Friedman.