''Roadblock'' is a 1951 American film noir starring

Charles McGraw Charles McGraw (born Charles Crisp Butters; May 10, 1914 – July 29, 1980) was an American stage, film and television actor whose career spanned more than three decades. Early life McGraw was born to Beatrice (née Crisp) and Francis P. B ...

and

Joan Dixon Joan Dixon (June 6, 1930 in Norfolk, Virginia – February 20, 1992 in Los Angeles) was an American film and television actress in the 1950s. She is known for her role in the film noir ''Roadblock'' (1951). Career Dixon appeared in ten fil ...

. The 73-minute crime thriller was shot on location in Los Angeles. The film was directed by

Harold Daniels Harold Daniels was an actor and then a director of American films. He directed about 14 films. The 1958 ''Terror in the Haunted House'' he directed was the first to use the technique known as '' Psychorama''. Filmography Director *'' They Met in ...

and the cinematography is by

Nicholas Musuraca Nicholas Musuraca, A.S.C. (October 25, 1892 – September 3, 1975) was a motion-picture cinematographer best remembered for his work at RKO Pictures in the 1940s, including many of Val Lewton's series of B-picture horror films. Biography B ...

Plot

Insurance investigator Joe Peters (McGraw) and his partner Harry Miller (Louis Jean Heydt) solve a lucrative recovery case and prepare to fly home. Joe meets and gets played by Diane (Dixon) at the airport. Lacking enough money to fly on her own she pretends to be his wife without his knowledge in order to get half fare on her ticket. They wind up assigned to the same hotel room after a storm forces an unscheduled stop. An uneasy detente develops. Joe is attracted to the comely but diffident Diane, despite his dislike for "chiselers". She makes it quite clear she loves the finer things in life, which "Honest Joe" (as Diane calls him) cannot possibly afford on his small salary of $350 per month. They part uneasily when they reach Los Angeles. When Joe and Harry are assigned to check out the prime suspect in a string of fur robberies, Kendall Webb (Lowell Gilmore). Joe runs into Diane, who has become Webb's mistress. Their mutual attraction flares up and Joe, in order to finance a dream life with Diane, decides to use inside information on a cash shipment of $1.25 million to set up a robbery for Webb in return for one-third of the take. Unaware of the deal and disillusioned at being a kept woman, Diane decides that her love for Joe is greater than her avarice. When she tells Joe she wants to get married he tries to back out with Webb. However, Webb convinces him that Diane might not feel the same after a few months living on his paltry pay. The railway mail car robbery is successful, but a railroad employee is injured and later dies. The robbery coincides with Joe and Diane's honeymoon, giving him an alibi. One of the robbers is identified and arrested. With the investigation encroaching, Joe confesses to Diane what he has done. Desperate, Joe arranges to meet Webb on a desolate stretch of highway by telling him he has a plan to get them out of their mess. Instead, he knocks Webb out and stages a car accident in which Webb is killed and his share of the money partially burned. Harry figures out that his partner is involved and pleads with him to turn himself into the police. Cornered, Joe tries to flee to Mexico with Diane, but is tracked down and shot. He dies in Diane's arms.

Cast

as Joe Peters *

as Diane *

Lowell Gilmore Lowell Gilmore (20 December 1906 – 31 January 1960) was an American stage, film and television actor. Life and career Lowell Gilmore first worked as a stage manager on the 1929 Broadway play ''The First Mrs. Fraser'', but got his chance as a ...

as Kendall Webb *

Louis Jean Heydt Louis Jean Heydt (April 17, 1903 – January 29, 1960) was an American character actor in film, television and theatre, most frequently seen in hapless, ineffectual, or fall guy roles. Early life Heydt was born in 1903 (not 1905, as many sou ...

as Harry Miller * Milburn Stone as Egan

Reception

Critical response

Hans J. Wollstein, writing for Allmovie, calls the film a "low-budget but highly engrossing film noir". Dennis Schwartz, at Ozus' World Movie Reviews writes "In the end everything was done in such a flat manner, that it was hard to care that straight-shooter McGraw lost his integrity and life for an icy broad who ironically would have loved him the way he was." According to film critics Bob Porfiero and

Alain Silver Alain Silver is a US film producer, director, and screenwriter; music producer; film critic, film historian, DVD commentator, author and editor of books and essays on film topics, especially film noir, the samurai film, and horror films. Filmm ...

, the screenwriters took a hard-boiled mystery plot and combined it with "an aura of middle-class malaise and pervasive corruption to provide a motivation for Peters' alienation and fall." The noir notion of entrapment is illustrated by the staging of Peters' death in the semi-dry Los Angeles river bed, and it is one of the early scenes of a car chase filmed there. Silver, Alain and Elizabeth Ward. ''Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style.'' Film noir analysis by Bob Porfiero and Alain Silver, page 244. The Overlook Press, 3rd edition, 1992. .

References

External links

* * * * * {{YouTube, y3TMvQyX2aM, ''Roadblock'' film scene 1951 films 1951 crime drama films 1950s heist films American black-and-white films American crime drama films American heist films Film noir Films scored by Paul Sawtell 1950s English-language films Films directed by Harold Daniels 1950s American films