A Best Noir in Smallest Package

Armored Car Robbery Joins a Crowded 1950 Bill

Charles McGraw Cracks an Armored Car Robbery (1950)

Oh, what a honey of a noir! To think masterworks like this were taken so utterly for granted. RKO made it for just $203K, but still Armored Car got robbed to loss of $40,000 (only $195K in domestic rentals and $100K foreign). Weren't there critics and trade to tell everyone how nifty these 67 minutes were? Cop shows would surface on TV, making it tougher for modest features to graze. Now pics like this are revered, and rightly, Warner Instant streaming Armored Car Robbery lately in HD. Nice when a title gives you the pic's whole score, robbing fuse lit in an opener reel and chase being on from there. Charles McGraw is happily not among miscreants, him the seasoned dick beset with an immature partner. McGraw is my idea of star presence, gravel spit with every line. Heavies are the customary loser lot but for William Talman, who cuts tags out of wardrobe to avoid "loose ends." Who wrote such marvelous stuff? Credits say Earl Fenton had a hand, applied as well to RKO classics His Kind Of Woman, The Narrow Margin, more. Did this man (who died in 1972) realize how good he was? If not, the Academy should have told him. Directing was Richard Fleischer, Armored Car Robbery a calling card when he was mentioned for afterward jobs. Did Disney catch the Armored Car before offering Fleischer 20,000 Leagues in 1953? Unsure how many times I've watched this, an always joy, and evergreen forever.