It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Great noir thriller. William Talman excels as the crime boss Purvis. The plot shoots at us with a relentless pace. The heist happens early on, with its inevitable complications leading to the end of the line for Talman.Adele Jergens nailed down her role as a burlesque dancer, girlfriend to Talman, and sometimes wife to the unlucky Douglas Fowley's Benny. Despite the short running time, Armored Car Robbery packs in plenty of scenes. The grungy dock area absorbs a lot of the movie, but we're nonetheless sent around to police headquarters, the sleazy nightclub and seedy bar, and the dark rainy streets and alleys of L.A.Talman's hyper demeanor maintains tension; we never know who he's going to strike out at next. His character's lack of sensitivity epitomizes the narcissistic criminal personality. His only value is a pay-off; "Here's to money" is his toast with Jergens. In the brilliant runway scene he's whacked by an incoming plane, his useless cash tumbling down around him like so much garbage. McGraw, as the tough police Lieutenant, isn't not nearly as entertaining as Talman. He does warm up a bit to his new rookie partner, but he's almost robotic for most of the film. A strong personality projects power. Since we know a Robert Mitchum character is tough, he can have nuances; McGraw has to pile it on so much he comes off as one-dimensional. His performance isn't bad at all, just not up to Talman's excellence.Very rewarding experience on many levels. Worth watching just for Talman and Jergens; not to mention for the atmosphere, plot, and supporting cast. Not to be missed.

The old Wrigley Field in Los Angeles becomes the setting for a heist of the armored car by a group of crooks who then shoot it out with the police. One officer is sent to the hospital with a bullet wound, while one of the crooks is seriously wounded yet manages to make it past the officers who search each car passing through their barricade. This riveting crime drama/film noir examines both the thieves' plans to how the investigators take each clue they receive to identify the culprits. Add in a burlesque queen (married to one of the robbers), some thrilling car chases and a finale that will have you dropping your jaw, and you've got a fun-filled "B" feature that shows once again if crime does pay, it comes at a cost.You've seen all of these character types in movies before, and how the gangsters all seem to be in sync until the bottom falls out. Betrayal always follows, and some will live, but a few will most likely die. These films don't shirk on action, and with mostly a cast of unknowns, seem grittier than some of the "A" features of similar themes. This 1950 RKO movie is pretty much the same theme as 1955's low-budget noir, "The Killing" (set at a race track rather than a ball game). You can pretty much predict how everything is going to turn out, but it is so much fun watching it all unfold. Adele Jergens, one of the great brassy blondes of the golden age of Hollywood, is memorable as the burlesque queen the cops question and who may or may not lead them to the bandits. Crackling dialog, rough action and a no-holds barred and unapologetic atmosphere of grit make this a must for crime/film noir lovers.

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.

"Violent Saturday" director Richard Fleischer maintains momentum throughout his gritty, fast-paced, crime thriller "Armored Car Robbery." An obstinate Los Angeles Police Department detective wants to nab a ruthless career criminal for the fatal shooting of his partner during a daring, daylight hold-up. Most heist movies build up to the crime after the villains have invested considerable time and effort in setting up their score. This straightforward, efficiently fashioned B-movie, however, plunges the bad guys into action during the first third of the tale while the remainder of "Armored Car Robbery" depicts the chief villain's futile efforts to evade the authorities. Altogether, this nifty little RKO Radio Pictures' caper doesn't appear to be anything more than a potboiler, but Fleischer puts his serviceable cast through the paces without letting things simmer down. Essentially, Hollywood makes two kinds of armored car heist capers; those where the crime is an inside-job, and those where it is an outside job. "Armored Car Robbery" fits into the latter category. Fleischer and scenarists Earl Fenton and Gerald Drayson Adams keep things plausible throughout this tightly-plotted, 67-minute melodrama. Half of the plausibility here is the method of operation that the criminals utilize.David Purvis (William Talman, later of TV's "Perry Mason" where he played the chief prosecutor) is a criminal mastermind obsessed with details. He plans to knock off an armored car at Wrigley Stadium in Los Angeles, and he sends the L.A.P.D. some false alarms so he can clock the time it takes for them to reach the stadium. Afterward, he briefs his gang, including Benjamin 'Benny' McBride (Douglas Fowley of "Battleground"), Al Mapes (Steve Brodie of "Badman's Territory"), and William 'Ace' Foster (Gene Evans of "The Steel Helmet") about the stick-up. Purvis describes the robbery as "a one-shot deal" worth a half-million dollars. Purvis stipulates he will take half of the $500-thousand haul, while the other three can split what is left between them. He orders them to "study this routine until it comes out your ears." Fleischer cuts to the following Tuesday when the crime takes place. Meantime, the concept of 'honor among thieves' doesn't apply here when we learn information that Benny doesn't know. Specifically, Purvis is making time with Bennie's high-maintenance burlesque hall dancer wife Yvonne LeDoux (Adele Jergens of "Blonde Dynamite") who wants nothing to do with Benny.Fleischer cleverly stages the actual robbery. Wheeling up behind the armored car, Foster climbs out to tinker with the overheated engine of his old jalopy. At the right moment, they don gas masks and set-off a gas bomb. A stadium cashier alerts the police. Although Purvis had clocked the police response time at 3 minutes, L.A. Detectives, Lieutenant Jim Cordell (Charles McGraw of "The Narrow Margin") and his partner, Lieutenant Phillips (James Flavin of "G-Men"), are cruising in the vicinity. Cordell and his partner go into action with their revolvers blazing, and the criminals blast away at them, with Purvis dropping Phillips, but not before Cordell hits Benny. Mapes whips up in the getaway car, and the criminals take off with Cordell hot on their heels until Purvis stars his windshield with a bullet and a deliver truck crosses his path, forcing him to swerve and lose sight of them. Nevertheless, Benny is badly wounded and the hoods are rattled. Cordell gets gung-ho rookie Detective Danny Ryan (Don McGuire of "Humoresque") to replace Phillips. The police kill Foster but capture Mapes, and Ryan decides to masquerade as Mapes and find out what Yvonne knows about Purvis. The cops install microphones in her dressing room and wire her automobile, like Burt Reynolds and his team would later do the heroine in "Sharky's Machine." The final showdown at the L.A. airport has Purvis and Yvonne taking a chartered two-engine aircraft for parts unknown. The police warn the tower, and the tower halts the aircraft. Purvis thrusts his revolver into the pilot's neck, but an incoming plane prevents them from taking off, and the cops are breathing down Purvis' neck. Scrambling out of the plane, he hoofs it across the tarmac, but Cordell brings him down. Purvis recovers, but it's too late. The plane that kept them from taking off collides with him and kills him. Of course, this scene is nothing like a similar scene in the Charles Bronson thriller "Break Out" where a propeller shredded a guy."Armored Car Robbery" qualifies as a film noir melodrama owing to lenser Guy Roe's high-contrast photography, the gritty urban settings, and the paranoia of Talman's criminal experiences as the robbery unravels. The police procedural part of the action includes some pre "C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation" scenes where the laboratory technicians help point the detectives in the right direction. In many ways, the vicious brain behind the robbery foreshadows the kind of criminal that Robert De Niro portrayed in "Heat." The William Talman thug reprimands his accomplices for jotting down anything incriminating that could be used against them as a clue. Furthermore, he goes to extreme lengths to appear as invisible as possible, right down to slicing the labels off his apparel with a razor blade. Mind you, since the Production Code Administration was still calling the shots in Hollywood, "Armored Car Robbery" is rather predictable because you know that the hoodlums aren't going to get away with the loot. In other words, this is another crime-does-not pay movie. Nevertheless, despite his doomed future, the cunning villain emerges as a more interesting character than the cops chasing him."Armored Car Robbery" is well-worth watching if you enjoy heist thrillers.