Roadblock **** (1951, Charles McGraw, Joan Dixon, Lowell Gilmore) – Classic Movie Review 9756

Little-known director Harold Daniels’s 1951 thriller Roadblock is a punchy Fifties B-movie crime drama re-heating the old film noir plot about an essentially good guy (Charles McGraw) tempted into crime by a greedy femme fatale (Joan Dixon).

To finance his love for sensual gold-digger model Diane Morley, a girl with expensive tastes, McGraw’s previously honest LA insurance investigator detective Joe Peters plans a million dollar mail robbery.

Everything ends with furious chase through Los Angeles’ dry concrete riverbeds.

Roadblock is short, sharp and satisfying, with good performances and striking shooting in black and white by Nicholas Musuraca, on location in LA and in the RKO Studios, 780 N. Gower Street, Hollywood.

Also in the cast are Lowell Gilmore, Louis Jean Heydt, Milburn Stone, Joseph Crehan, Joe Forte, Martha Mears and Dewey Robinson.

Roadblock is directed by Harold Daniels, runs 73 minutes, is made and released by RKO Radio Pictures, is written by Steve Fisher and George Bricker, based on a story by Richard H Landau and Daniel Mainwaring [Geoffrey Homes], is shot in black and white by Nicholas Musuraca, is produced by Lewis J Rachmil, and scored by Paul Sawtell.

Harold Daniels (1903–1971) is known for The Woman from Tangier (1948), Roadblock (1951), Port Sinister (1953) and My World Dies Screaming (1958).

Charles McGraw is best remembered for The Narrow Margin (1952), Armored Car Robbery (1950) and The Killers (1946).

Joan Dixon (1930–1992).

Joan Dixon is known for Bunco Squad (1950), Roadblock (1951) and Gunplay (1951).

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9756

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