Mon 13 Oct 2025
ROADBLOCK. RKO Radio Pictures, 1951. Charles McGraw, Joan Dixon, Lowell Gilmore, Louis Jean Heydt, Milburn Stone. Story by Richard Landau and Daniel Mainwaring (as Geoffrey Homes). Co-screenwriter: Steve Fisher. Director: Harold Daniels.
A hard-nosed insurance investigator falls hard for a girl, the kind of girl who wants nothing but money out of life, hardly the kind of money an insurance investigator makes, and he decides to do something about it.
And he makes a mess of it, especially after the girl decides it is really he she wants, not the fur coats. Joan Dixon does not seem to have had much of a Hollywood career, and I can’t see why. Her dark seductive eyes are very nearly in the Gail Russell class.
— Reprinted from Movie.File.1, March 1988.
October 15th, 2025 at 4:48 am
I know what you mean about Joan Dixon, Steve. She seems to have been a victim of the contracting film industry of the 1950s.
October 15th, 2025 at 10:08 am
Other than a few westerns she did with Tim Holt, ROADBLOCK seems to have been the highlight of her career, or if not, very close to it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Dixon
While the movie is available on DVD, I haven’t been able to find it streaming anywhere, including YouTube.
October 19th, 2025 at 10:38 pm
Relatively minor, but impeccable credentials in cast and screenplay, Mainwaring/Homes and Fisher both handled the good guy gone bad plot well.