If the structure is standard procedural, the character actors bring it all to sardonic seedy life.

An exciting film noir robbery escapade set in LA.

Imagine a dish like this married to a mug like Benny McBride ... the naked and the dead. Armored Car Robbery is directed by Richard Fleischer and collectively written by Earl Felton, Gerald Adams, Robert Angus and Robert Leeds. It stars William Talman, Charles McGraw, Adele Jergens, Douglas Fowley, Steve Brodie and Don McGuire. Music is by Roy Webb and cinematography by Guy Roe. When a meticulously planned robbery goes wrong, Dave Purvis (Talman) and his gang find there's a particularly driven copper closing in on them. The caper premise has served film noir well over the years, and while Armored Car Robbery is not the hidden gem some have called it (it's no Asphalt Jungle for instance), it is still an effectively tough piece of film. The structure used by Fleischer and the writers is to show the robbery early in the piece and then unfurl the aftermath for the majority of the film. Characterisations are classic noir, the tough gang leader who consistently changes his identity to fool the cops, the foxy dame who is turning heads and is having relationships with two of the gang, the cannon fodder, the dope and the tough as nails copper who will stop at nothing to bring the bad guys down. The pace of the story is sedate, but this is no bad thing as we get attention to detail with the manhunt and the respective psychological make ups of the thieves. The two-timing aspect in the…

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