After an ingeniously twisted opening sequence, "Roadblock" tells the story of an honest man's descent into criminality before ending with a well-staged car chase that concludes at Los Angeles' concrete riverbed. The man's downfall is caused by his obsession with a woman that he wants so badly that he can't think straight but her only interest is in the finer things in life and the money that's needed to buy them.
Having successfully recovered a large sum of stolen money that had been insured by their firm, a couple of L.A. insurance investigators decide to head home separately and when one of them, Joe Peters (Charles McGraw), encounters a sexy brunette at the airport, he's immediately attracted to her. Later, he's surprised to find her sitting next to him on the plane and soon discovers that she'd posed as his wife to get her ticket at half price. When their plane has to make an emergency landing because of a storm, they have to share a hotel room for the night and it quickly becomes apparent that Diane Marley (Joan Dixon) is a gold-digger who sneers at Joe's modest salary and says that he's not in her league. When they land in L.A., Diane re-emphasises her lack of interest in Joe and they go their separate ways.
Immediately after his return to work, Joe's assigned to investigate a fur-store robbery and when he's shadowing the prime suspect, local racketeer Kendall Webb (Lowell Gilmore), sees that he's accompanied by Diane who's adorned in an expensive fur stole. She's now Webb's mistress and says that she's working as a model. When Joe learns about a shipment of $1,250,000 in old bills that his company is insuring, he presents Kendall Web with a plan for robbing the train that's due to carry the cash from L.A. to San Francisco and agrees to be paid a one-third share of the loot for his part in the caper. During the Christmas holiday period, when Webb leaves Diane on her own while he goes home to visit his family and she spends time alone in a bar where the barman goes into raptures about the pleasures of family life, she has a change of heart and decides she wants to marry Joe, just as he is.
Joe discovers it's too late to back out of his involvement in the robbery and after marrying Diane, is on honeymoon in a mountain cabin when the train heist goes ahead. This seems to provide him with a cast-iron alibi, but complications develop when he's assigned to work as part of the team that's brought together to investigate the crime.
With its lively pace, hard-boiled dialogue and gripping story about the dangers of giving in to temptation, this highly entertaining thriller is exciting and interesting from start to finish. Despite its low-budget status, "Roadblock" also has a really good cast with Charles McGraw standing out as the tough guy who trades his integrity and so much more to win the woman he desires so powerfully.
Having successfully recovered a large sum of stolen money that had been insured by their firm, a couple of L.A. insurance investigators decide to head home separately and when one of them, Joe Peters (Charles McGraw), encounters a sexy brunette at the airport, he's immediately attracted to her. Later, he's surprised to find her sitting next to him on the plane and soon discovers that she'd posed as his wife to get her ticket at half price. When their plane has to make an emergency landing because of a storm, they have to share a hotel room for the night and it quickly becomes apparent that Diane Marley (Joan Dixon) is a gold-digger who sneers at Joe's modest salary and says that he's not in her league. When they land in L.A., Diane re-emphasises her lack of interest in Joe and they go their separate ways.
Immediately after his return to work, Joe's assigned to investigate a fur-store robbery and when he's shadowing the prime suspect, local racketeer Kendall Webb (Lowell Gilmore), sees that he's accompanied by Diane who's adorned in an expensive fur stole. She's now Webb's mistress and says that she's working as a model. When Joe learns about a shipment of $1,250,000 in old bills that his company is insuring, he presents Kendall Web with a plan for robbing the train that's due to carry the cash from L.A. to San Francisco and agrees to be paid a one-third share of the loot for his part in the caper. During the Christmas holiday period, when Webb leaves Diane on her own while he goes home to visit his family and she spends time alone in a bar where the barman goes into raptures about the pleasures of family life, she has a change of heart and decides she wants to marry Joe, just as he is.
Joe discovers it's too late to back out of his involvement in the robbery and after marrying Diane, is on honeymoon in a mountain cabin when the train heist goes ahead. This seems to provide him with a cast-iron alibi, but complications develop when he's assigned to work as part of the team that's brought together to investigate the crime.
With its lively pace, hard-boiled dialogue and gripping story about the dangers of giving in to temptation, this highly entertaining thriller is exciting and interesting from start to finish. Despite its low-budget status, "Roadblock" also has a really good cast with Charles McGraw standing out as the tough guy who trades his integrity and so much more to win the woman he desires so powerfully.