ARMORED CAR ROBBERY

With a running time of 67 minutes, ARMORED CAR ROBBERY (1950) is propelled by a lean-as-a-greyhound screenplay by Earl Felton and getting-better-with-each-picture direction by Richard Fleischer. Working for the B unit at RKO, Fleischer produced a run of six classic films noir over a three year period. The films include: TRAPPED (1949), FOLLOW ME QUIETLY (1949), THE CLAY PIGEON (1949), ARMORED CAR ROBBERY (1950), HIS KIND OF WOMAN (1951) and his masterpiece, THE NARROW MARGIN (1952).

  Stripped of any hint of moral ambiguity, ARMORED CAR ROBBERY is a straight-ahead cops and robbers thriller that moves like it was shot from a cannon. William Talman plays criminal mastermind Dave Purvis who recruits a gang to pull off the title caper. His gang consists of Benny McBride (Douglas Fowley), Al Mapes (Steve Brodie) and Ace Foster (Gene Evans). They've got a solid plan until, of course, something goes wrong during the heist (which takes place early in the film).

The gang is interrupted by tough-as-nails LAPD detective Jim Cordell (Charles McGraw, the living embodiment of Dick Tracy) and his partner. The partner is killed in a shoot out, McBride is wounded by Cordell and the gang goes on the run with Cordell and his new partner, rookie cop Danny Ryan (Don McGuire) on their trail. McBride's estranged wife (and Purvis's lover) burlesque performer Yvonne LeDoux (the smoldering Adele Jergens), holds the key to catching the fugitives. The cops bug (without a warrant), her dressing room and automobile in the hopes of gaining information.

Things move at a brisk clip as Cordell and Ryan pursue the bad guys across a landscape of now vanished mid-century Los Angeles. The cinematography by Guy Roe lends the appropriate shadows to scenes of night action and the chase climaxes in a grisly accident on an airport runway.

Lean, tough and stripped down to the essentials, ARMORED CAR ROBBERY is a swiftly paced crime thriller that features one helluva cast of noir icons and plenty of machine-gun fast dialogue. It's as hard-boiled as they come.

Highly recommended.