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.
© James Travers 2013
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Richard Fleischer film:
His Kind of Woman (1951)
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...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.