Roadblock

Another one of those movies that I saw several years ago but for whatever reason never blogged about -- heck, I wouldn't be surprised if the last time I saw it was before I started the blog -- is the B noir Roadblock. So the last time it ran on TCM I recorded it, and recently re-watched it in order to be able to give it a full-length review.

The movie starts off in Cincinnati, where Joe Peters (Charles McGraw) holds a guy up, looking for a cool $100,000 that the guy supposedly had. With a gun in his side, the man drives to a cemetery and goes in one of the crypts, where he undoes one of the tiles to reveal a banker's box protected by a gun. At that point, a third man enters the crypt, and it's revealed that Peters actually works in insurance recovery, with the third man being his parnter, Harry Miller (Louis Jean Heydt). This man had robbed a bank; Joe and Harry's employers ensure against robberies, and they want the cash back for the bank.

Joe sends Harry back to their home base of Los Angeles with the cash while he stays behind to deal with the police and whatnot. At the airport he sees a pretty woman who astute viewers could guess looks suspsiciously like a femme fatale. But Joe is a character in a movie, and he probably hasn't watched enough noirs. The woman flirts with him, and then goes over to the ticket counter. She wants to get to Los Angeles and doesn't have enough money for a ticket. But she knows of a scheme the airline has that one this day of the week a full-fare passenger can travel with a spouse who only pays half price. The woman, named Diane (Joan Dixon), claims to be Mrs. Joe Peters. Joe, unsurprisingly, is none too pleased when he learns of the deception.

Worse, he has to spend a fair deal of time with Diane because the plane has to land to avoid weather and the airline puts everybody up overnight. Diane is a woman with expensive tastes, hence the cheating to get a half-fare ticket rather than going by bus. But she also taunts Joe, telling him that one of these days he's going to develop a taste for something that his insurance detective salary can't cover. And that something just might be her. Those of us who have seen enough noirs can figure where all this is going, but Joe obviously hasn't.

So we know they're going to see each other again, and it doesn't take all that long. Joe and Harry immediately get put on another case, investigating who might be behind a string of robberies against a prominent furrier. No; it's not Diane who is behind it. But she's become the woman on the side of the racketeer who they think is responsible, Kendall Webb (Lowell Gilmore), and this would explain how she's able to go around in fine furs.

At this point the film gets a bit ridiculous. Joe decides to go bad in order to be able to get enough money to win Diane away from Webb. At the same time, Diane realizes that being a moll isn't all it's cracked up to be, and thinks about going straight and even possibly settling down with Joe. But since this is a noir, we know that Joe is going to make that fatal error, which involves working for Webb. Even if there weren't a Production Code, who could think this would go well?

Despite the plot twist that I don't think bears any resemblance to real life, Roadblock is a highly entertaining B noir. McGraw is well-suited to the genre, while Joan Dixon is a good femme fatale. Gilmore might be the weak link here, along with the plot that strains credulity more and more.

There are better noirs out there. There are better B noirs out there. Heck, there are even better B noirs out there that starr Charles McGraw (The Narrow Margin comes immediately to mind). But Roadblock is more than worth a watch.