Review of The Red House

Probably nothing he could ever have done in his career would've topped "Little Casear", but he was great in the supporting role as the head of the insurance company's fraud unit in "Double Indemnity", and he's great here, as a seemingly noble but distant farmer in a remote rural area. One cannot help but think that this area's major farm export was its youth; it seems like the sort of place that most people can't wait to leave as soon as they finish high school, then or now. His plans to hold onto his adoptive daughter seem to be crypto-incestuous until we learn why he is so obsessed with her; then it becomes somewhat difficult not to feel at least some sympathy for him. His noble, self-sacrificing sister is a memorable character as well, but the high point of the film is Robinson's facial expression when he drives his pickup truck off of the bluff into the icy fate that awaits him; the one he desires and feels that he deserves. One of the few ''films noir'' in which the ''femme fatale'' is a high school girl, although I'm pretty certain (I've not looked it up) that the actress portraying her was considerably older than that.