Armored Car Robbery (1950)
Directed by Richard Fleischer

Film Review

Richard Fleischer is affectionately remembered by science-fiction enthusiasts for the trio of classic sci-fi films he made towards the middle of his career: 20000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), Fantastic Voyage (1966) and Soylent Green (1973).  He is less well remembered for his musical misfires Doctor Dolittle (1967) and The Jazz Singer (1980).  The kind of film that Fleischer was most adept at making were tense, moody thrillers, exemplified by The Boston Strangler (1968) and 10 Rillington Place (1971).  This should hardly be surprising as he began his career directing low-budget crime-oriented B-movies for RKO, some of which are respectable examples of 1940s/50s film noir.  Armored Car Robbery is one such film, a modest but remarkably taut and well-constructed example of what we now know as the classic heist movie.

Running to just over one hour in length, Armored Car Robbery tells its story with exceptional economy but without appearing to cut corners.  The characters are convincingly played and have a life of their own, not just the dull ciphers we often encounter in B-movie productions of this time.  William Talman dominates the film as the sadistic gangster boss Dave Purvis, in a performance that is both chilling and utterly compelling.  Just as driven, and just as ruthless in his own way, is Talman's opposite number, an avenging cop played with a dour charm by Charles McGraw, a possible forerunner of the maverick cop who would become a vital ingredient of later hard-boiled crime films, culminating in Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry.

Armored Car Robbery risks appearing formulaic and predictable by today's standards but for its time it was groundbreaking - few others films prior to this had portrayed a heist with so much realism and attention to detail.  There would be better, slicker heist movies than this in subsequent years, but this is where the sub-genre had its gestation.  Compact, tense and bleak almost to the point of nihilism in places, Armored Car Robbery shows Fleischer at his most focussed and creative, a far cry from the overblown blockbusters that would take the gloss off his later career.

Film Synopsis

Dave Purvis leads a gang of hardened criminals who plan to ambush an armoured car when it makes a collection outside a baseball station in Los Angeles.  The heist is a success but the police turn up sooner than expected.  In the ensuing shoot out, one of the gang, Benny McBride, is wounded, and a cop is shot dead.  Determined to avenge the death of his colleague, Lieutenant Jim Cordell begins his dogged pursuit of Purvis, and soon picks up the trail when he manages to connect the gangster with a nightclub stripper named Yvonne...