Leofwine_draca ROADBLOCK is a film noir B-movie that borrows a lot of the plotting and situations from the likes of genre classics such as DOUBLE INDEMNITY. The story involves a crooked insurance investigator who finds himself falling in love with a classic femme fatale. She's not interested in him, so he turns to robbery in order to facilitate her advances, but of course it all ends in tears. Doesn't it always? ROADBLOCK is a workable B-movie but it's fair to say that the storyline is overly familiar and the execution is hardly the stuff of greatness. Charles McGraw is a dependable leading man type figure, but he carries little of the conviction or charisma of the likes of Robert Mitchum or Robert Ryan. Joan Dixon is better as the alluring love interest, but her character is rather sharply drawn and I can't help but feel more melodrama could have been made of the premise. As it stands, it's only at the high-speed climax where things start to get interesting.

kidboots Charles McGraw was the toughest looking star and his gravelly voice was exactly what you would expect, but in this movie he proved he was a big pushover for a dame. The film started in an exciting way with a man witnessing a murder, then being held up. He claims he isn't so innocent and will split robbery proceeds of $100,000 50/50 if he is released. I won't give anything away but the film doesn't let up from there.Money is the theme - the lack of it, wanting it and what it can give you. "Honest" Joe Peters (Charles McGraw) is an insurance investigator who is quite content with his work and his pay - until he meets a beautiful icy stranger, Diane (Joan Dixon) at the airport. In an amusing scene she gets a cheaper ticket by posing as his wife, but it also means they have to share the same hotel room when the plane is stranded, due to bad weather. Diane is a model, and is looking for a man with wealth but there is something about Joe that she likes and he feels the same way about her. The next time they meet she is the mistress of a racketeer but she renews her friendship with Joe. Joe desperately wants to give Diane all the things he thinks she deserves and so approaches Kendall Webb (Lowell Gilmore) with plans he has for a mail robbery - he has inside information due to the insurance company he works for. Meanwhile, in the weakest part of the film Diane has changed her mind and is now content for Joe to be just an "Honest Joe" on a minimum wage. He can't get out of it and he and Diane honeymoon up in a mountain cabin as he awaits his share of the money to be delivered in a fire extinguisher. Somehow mountains and canoeing do not seem to come naturally to Diane, who, all through the film has worn a different fur coat in every scene!!! Joe's partner Harry (Louis Jean Heydt) smells a rat. It is his cabin and he had just bought a new fire extinguisher the year before. The stage is set for a gripping finale in the Los Angeles River (without the water!!!) There is a symbolic last scene as Diane totters away (on high heels) to an unknown future.Joan Dixon, who was an extremely beautiful Gene Tierney look-alike, was a protégé of Howard Hughes, but, alas, one of his failures. She left films in 1952 to marry but it didn't work out and the next year she was back at the studios trying to pick up the pieces - unfortunately she couldn't.

MCL1150 In my book, all true film-noir films are good in one way or another. There's just something about a post war film-noir thriller and "Roadblock" as as good as any of them. I guess this qualifies as a B-picture, but I refuse to see it that way. What I liked about it was how the femme fatal crosses over from being a gold digging ice princess to actually choosing love over money. She is played by non other than Joan Dixon who went on to appear in only about four other films. Too bad, I thought she was really lovely. Then there's the great Charles McGraw. He's just made for the film-noir genre and just about my favorite noir actor. Here he literally plays good cop/bad cop. I actually caught myself feeling disappointed that he was a good guy who went wrong. For me, it had a great feel. The cinematography was done by Nicholas Musuraca who had one Oscar nod to his credit. A top camera guy is always as big in a noir as any of the on-screen actors. At under 75 minutes it certainly doesn't wear out it's welcome. If you love film noir, then add this one to your list!BTW, I had recorded "Roadblaock"on DVD and just watched it yet again. Over two years later, my original review still stands. I watch it every time it's on TCM and I love it more and more. Along with Jack Carson, Charles McGraw is one of my very favorite "second tier" actors and "Roadblock" will always be a film that I'l urge others to seek out.Oh, one last thing, "We Don't Have Your Size!"

bmacv Drop a laurel wreath on Charles McGraw's huge, sculptural head – you can almost see it in the Greco-Roman wing of a museum, perched atop a pedestal. He was one of the noir cycle's most serviceable pieces of furniture, along with Raymond Burr and Elisha Cook, Jr. Most often he lurked in the murky background, but sometimes, most memorably in The Narrow Margin, he stayed front and center. He also shuttled uncomplainingly between the underworld and the keepers of law and order. Starring in Roadblock, he tries to straddle both worlds.This no-frills noir opens with a tease: McGraw stages a murder, then abducts a witness whom he manipulates into buying his way out of certain death with the loot from a bank job. But the movie is setting up McGraw as a straight-arrow insurance investigator who'll stop at nothing to achieve his goal.Until he crosses paths with Joan Dixon, that is. A crafty gold-digger, she finds him sweet but `honest;' she's saving her sexual artillery for more affluent game, which she finds in a smooth racketeer (Lowell Gilmore). But McGraw can't get her out of his blood and, knowing that furs and jewels are the path to her mercenary heart, strikes up a deal with the mobster. He offers him a million-and-a-quarter, insured by his company, which he knows will be traveling by train; if Gilmore pulls the job off, McGraw will settle for $400 grand.The irony – and the script's least convincing turn – is that Dixon falls for McGraw anyway and renounces her grasping ways. (Not only does this ring false, it also makes her far less arresting a character.) Despite second thoughts, McGraw gets his share of the take. Then, naturally, he's assigned to the team of investigators trying to crack the case....Harold Daniels, who had a brief and largely undistinguished career as both actor and director, keeps the action swift and simple – it races down an hour-plus of highway until it reaches its titular roadblock. The movie goes down as easily and satisfyingly as a hot dog and a beer.