The Roadhouse Murder

1932
5.3| 1h12m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 28 April 1932 Released
Producted By: RKO Radio Pictures
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Info

After he stumbles across a murder, a young reporter devises an elaborate scene to keep his newspaper stories about the crime front-page news. Eric Linden, Dorothy Jordan, Bruce Cabot, Roscoe Ates, Roscoe Karns and Purnell Pratt star in this 1932 thriller, directed by J. Walter Ruben.

Genre

Thriller

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Director

J. Walter Ruben

Production Companies

RKO Radio Pictures

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The Roadhouse Murder Audience Reviews

Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!
StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
Donald Seymour This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
blanche-2 Oh, where to even start with this sad B movie.An ambitious young reporter who wants to get married and provide for his wife gets caught in a downpour with his fiancée. They duck into an inn. Hearing noise, they find someone in the next room dead, as well as the guy who let them in. The killer was a guy looking for money, and he had a woman with him -- they find the money, but she leaves her purse behind with her name and address inside.The reporter sets himself up as the murderer, but gives his fiancée the purse to keep to prove his innocence. He calls in the murder anonymously and then sends reports in of how it feels to be hiding and on the run from the cops.Eric Linden plays the idiot reporter who apparently never heard of hard work rather than schemes, and Dorothy Jordan, who is in for a life of misery if she marries this guy, is his fiancée.This was Bruce Cabot's first credited film, and soon after, he saved Fay Wray from King Kong.The film will remind some of the Fritz Lang film, "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt," which I happen to love. It will remind you of it, and then, hopefully, you will forget the comparison since there really isn't one.
MikeMagi Let's see if I have this right. A newspaper reporter and his girl friend are caught in a downpour. Their car is stuck in the mud so they stagger off to the nearest hostelry where they stumble on a murder. Most people would call the cops. But not our plucky newsman. He plants clues implicating himself as the killer so that he can cover the story from a unique angle. Of course, he has something that will prove his innocence. And of course...duh!!!!...that item mysteriously vanishes. Which means unless a miracle occurs, he's going to the chair. Okay, it was 1932 and movies were just learning to talk. But this has to be one of the dumbest ideas for a thriller, even for those early days. On the other hand, idiotic as it is, it's curiously entertaining.
MartinHafer Chick Brian (Eric Linden) is a young and very eager reporter. However, eventually you see that he's not only eager but amazingly stupid--too stupid to make this film work.Chick and his girlfriend, Mary (Dorothy Jordan) are caught out in a rain storm. The top to his car is broken and they seek comfort at the Lame Dog Inn (with an emphasis on the word 'lame'!). The place is almost deserted and soon, out of the blue, there are a couple murders. It seems that a couple did it (the guy was Bruce Cabot in his first film) BUT instead of Chick and Mary reporting what they've seen, Chick gets a brilliant idea(????). He deliberately covers up real evidence and makes it appear as if he might have committed the murders. Now what RATIONAL reason would anyone with at least half a brain have for doing this?! Chick thinks it will be cool to mess with the police and reveal the real crime after he exploits this in the paper. But, not surprisingly, once he's gotten himself implicated, extricating himself is a lot more difficult than he'd imagined (well, duh!)...and I just kept hoping that they'd send this idiot to Death Row. Anyone that dumb doesn't deserve to live! Plus, he's cocky and annoying to boot--I say fry 'em--especially because even if the moron could eventually prove he didn't do it, he'd surely go to prison for obstructing justice! My feeling is that any film that requires the audience to suspend this much belief is a movie not worth your time. Characters behaving THIS irrationally simply make this film a chore to watch or respect. The only case where a film with a somewhat similar plot is worth seeing is Dana Andrews' "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt".
dbborroughs A reporter on the copy desk tries to get a chance to break a big story he has a lead on. When he tries to run it down he ends up bursting in on the girlfriend of the publisher of the paper as she's bathing. Deciding to relax with his girlfriend after a trying day he ends up stuck in the rain in his car with its top down. Getting a room at a roadhouse the couple thinks they hear a shot. Going to investigate they find two dead bodies and two people rifling through a desk who tell them "they know and saw nothing" before they climb out a window. Our hero sensing a big scoop then tries to bend the crime to his advantage and sets himself up for the murder so that he can write about it. The problem comes when he's unable to prove his innocence when he needs to.This early talkie is an okay, if clichéd, little film once it gets going. The early scenes in the newsroom seem to be steals from the Front Page and its over lapping dialog in a mad attempt to exploit the then novelty of sound film. Once the murders occur and the plot is in motion things are enjoyable even if we've seen it all before.The problem with this film is that its plot has been done countless times before and since. You know whats going to happen the question is do you care enough to see how they do it this time. Complicating matters is the acting which is often stilted and seemingly out of date and artificial. The behavior of the City editor at the opening is very unnatural. Coupling the odd acting styles with what now seems to be very silly dialog makes matters worse. I wasn't sure if I was laughing at or with the film. There are a few times when all of the problems in plot,acting and dialog come together to produce some big "they didn't mean that" sort of laughs.If you like old mysteries and don't mind one thats a bit past its freshness date I'd give it a try. If you don't want your movies stilted I'd stay away.