Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 3-October-10
Spoiler Rating: Medium

Road House (1948)

Some movies are crafted like short stories. Every shot serves a purpose and the overall effect is unique and unsettling, causing the reader to wonder how the author came up with the idea. (I am not sure why short stories tend to be unsettling, but it's a standard of the genre.) While I greatly admire writers who produce potent peppercorns of prose, I feel a special thrill when multiple artists achieve creative economy on a film. Such is my appreciation of Jean Negulesco's gem, Road House.

Some of the artists involved with Road House are, of course, actors, chief among whom is Ida Lupino. She plays a lounge singer named Lily who lands in a Western town just south of the Canadian border. With her whiplash tongue and bulletproof hair she appears to be your average femme fatale, but the situation proves that a single woman needs to protect herself. Her new boss Jefty (Richard Widmark) is paying for her hotel room and giving her the eye; his right-hand man Pete (Cornel Wilde) tries to run her out of town within minutes of their meeting. Pete manages Jefty's nightclub-cum-bowling alley and cleans up Jefty's messes, which often involve some broad who has outstayed her welcome. Friends since childhood, Pete understands that Jefty's easy charm lasts only as long as everything goes his way, so he tries to nip trouble in the bud.

Lily ignores the invitation to leave and proceeds to wow the locals with her singing. Several erotically charged encounters reveal that she and Pete can't maintain their antagonism for long. (Who knew bowling could be sexy?) If guarded hearts aren't enough of a challenge, they also face the potential for jealousy. Pete has been dallying with a co-worker who's sweet on him (Celeste Holm), and after Jefty returns from a hunting trip he announces that he is going to make Lily his wife. Sure, she has barely given him the time of day, but doesn't he always get what he wants? He has thus far, which is why he goes nuts upon discovering that Pete and Lily have fallen in love.

Widmark excels at nutty with an undercurrent of violence, and here he expands into diabolical cunning. (This is the "Wow, how'd someone think up this kettle of fish?" part.) Jefty rigs it so that Pete is convicted of a felony and placed in his own custody for two years' probation instead of going to jail. Imagine it: your best friend avenges himself for getting the pointy end of the love triangle by giving you a police record and fettering you to his side. At any time Jefty could claim that Pete violated probation to guarantee him the maximum sentence allowed by law. Since Lily is committed to Pete, Jefty holds them both in his sway. Boy, does he revel in his power.

The delicious finale arrives when Jefty tests the limits of everyone's endurance by bringing Pete, Lily, and Pete's ex-girlfriend to his camp in the woods. By now Lily's toughness has become wrenching desperation, and Lupino is nothing short of a powerhouse. When the monstrous game concludes, the viewer is likely to respond as to a good short story, i.e., by feeling tempted to start back at the beginning and marvel at how it comes together.

Copyright © 2010 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.