Johnny Case in Wonderland . . . hopelessly adrift in popular culture

As I once mentioned in a long ago post, I’m obsessed with films noir from their major cycle (roughly 1944-1958) during the Classical Hollywood era.  I’ve seen hundreds of them and I’m always watching more.  I might not ever see all of the thousand or more that were likely made, but it won’t be for lack of effort  As part of that process, I’ve currently got a bunch of the Fox Film Noir collection movies in the queue that I save for the nights when sleeplessness comes.  And the other night I screened Jean Negulesco’s Road House (1948).  In some ways it’s a mixed bag, which is primarily the fault of the presence of Cornel Wilde as Pete, the main character.  He just isn’t interesting and his being milquetoast detracts from the utter awesomeness that is Ida Lupina and Richard Widmark, as Lily and Jefty respectively.  Lupino is magnificent.  She looks hard and acts harder (at first), but she’s a fast talking dame with unstoppably powerful sex appeal and she knows how to use it to get what she wants.  And then there’s Widmark.  Is there an actor today who is as capable of projecting his brand of seething menace on screen?  That’s clearly a rhetorical question, because the answer is no.  Even when he’s being “nice,” there’s an underlying tone of creepiness.  I’ll never forget the first time I saw him in a movie, which was in a film noir class in college in which we watched Kiss of Death (Hathaway 1947) on a tiny little TV mounted up in the left hand corner of the room.  And even with such terrible A/V circumstances it was amazing.  It’s similar to Road House in that the lead, Victor Mature, is a bland presence in the main role (though I’m not always a Mature hater—I love his turn as Doc Holliday in John Ford’s My Darling Clementine [1946]).  But every time Widmark’s electrifying Tommy Udo came on-screen I kept thinking, “Wow! Who is that guy?” which apparently replicated the response of studio execs at the time, because it was Widmark’s debut film role and afterwards he was cast over and over again as a psychotic villain in all manner of movies.  And Road House is no exception.  He is absolutely terrifying and maniacal and you just can’t take your eyes off of him because you know it’s just a matter of time before the switch flips and Jefty will lose it, and lose it he does.  There’s just no one quite like him in cinema today, with his contemptuous sneer, lascivious gaze, explosive snarl, and ticking time-bomb volatility, and I’m not sure there ever will be again.