Dave Purvis takes pride in being unknown to the law, though famed among fellow crooks as a planner He plots a holdup in meticulous detail; but things go wrong, a cop and two robbers are killed, and Purvis hides out with the money while Lieut. Cordell, friend of the dead cop, investigates. Purvis's new getaway plan shows promise, but may have one tiny flaw. Dave Purvis has pulled off an armored-car robbery with engineering precision, and has a few details to tend to before boarding a chartered airplane to take him to a life of ease and comfort; first he shoots a wounded gang-member, whose wife he is bedding, tosses another one to the police and betrays a third and is nearly home free. However, Los Angeles Police Lieutenant Jim Cordell, using his brain and playing hunches, and making use of the police department's scientific network of laboratory, switchboard, radio-patrol cars, wire-tapping and recording devices is closing fast. After an armored car is robbed by a small gang of crooks, a determined cop goes after them. McGraw is good in what was for him a typical role of a no-nonsense tough guy. Talman, who made a career out of playing creepy villains, is also effective as the ruthless mastermind behind the robbery. The curvaceous Jergens provides the love interest. It is a solid if unspectacular crime drama, well executed by B-movie director Fleischer, who specialized in these kinds of gritty films, the best known being "The Narrow Margin," made a couple of years after this and also starring McGraw. It moves at a fast pace, clocking in at under 70 minutes. Wow, was I ever impressed by this little film. While ARMORED CAR ROBBERY is not an especially sexy title and the film possesses no real star power, it is a wonderfully effective and superbly written little B-movie directed by a young Richard Fleischer. So far in his career Fleischer had directed some shorts and a couple undistinguished films and it was several years before he gained fame with THE NARROW MARGIN (also a wonderful B-film starring Charles McGraw), THE VIKINGS and SOYLENT GREEN. So, since he was an unknown, they gave him mostly unknowns for the film. The biggest name in it was Charles McGraw–a great heavy and supporting actor who'd been around but still hadn't made a name for himself. Additionally, William Talman plays the leader of the bad guys and while you most likely won't recognize his name, he is the man who played Hamilton Burger on the "Perry Mason" TV show.<br/><br/>While McGraw was as wonderful as I'd expected since I'd seen him in quite a few great Film Noir movies, I was particularly impressed by Talman. As Ham Burger, he was a bland and one-note character–the jerk who ALWAYS lost to Perry Mason. But here, he was a very cold, calculating and scary man because he was so believable and amoral. It's a darn shame that this role didn't result in better roles–he really showed he could act.<br/><br/>The film is naturally about an armored car robbery and it was rather straight-forward in its plotting. However, because the dialog and the rest of the writing was so true to life, it really jumped out at me. While it did have a few great Noir-like lines (spoken mostly by the great McGraw), it emphasized reality over style and seemed like a very honest crime drama more than anything else. While it lacked the tension of THE NARROW MARGIN, it made up for it with quality at every level–resulting in a marvelous and generally unrecognized little gem. Watch this film–it's dandy.
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370 weeks ago