Stubs - Armored Car Robbery

Armored Car Robbery (1950) Starring Charles McGraw, Adele Jergens, William Talman Directed by Richard Fleischer. Screenplay by Earl Felton, Gerald Drayson Adams. Produced by Herman Schlom. Run Time: 67 minutes. Black and White. USA Film Noir, Crime, Drama, Police, Heist

Many films that get categorized as film noirs fit into another group of titles called B pictures. Armored Car Robbery is such a film. An RKO Pictures production, Armored Car Robbery, according to film professor Bob Porfirio, possesses the "film noir visual style" of the many RKO crime and suspense films of the early 1950s, such as: high-contrast photography integrating studio and location shooting, expressionistic lighting, deep focus, and haunting music (by Roy Webb).

The film was based on a story by Charles Pete and Richard Carroll about a $500,000 robbery, based on a true story - the 1934 robbery at Rubel Ice Company. Originally called Gravesend Bay, it was sold to RKO in March 1949 and was renamed Code No. 3, Code 3, and Code 3-A before the studio settled on a more straight-forward title.

Shot in 16 days and incorporating locations in and around Los Angeles, most notably the old Wrigley Field, the film was released on June 7, 1950.

In Los Angeles,  a call comes in about a robbery and shooting at Wrigley Field and hard-nosed police lieutenant Jim Cordell (Charles McGraw) and his partner, Lt. Phillips (Jim Flavin), respond, along with patrol cars. However, when they arrive at the minor league park, they discover that the call was a false alarm and head to the station.

Dave Purvus (William Talman) times the police response.

The caller turns out to be crook Dave Purvus (William Talman), who has been clocking the police's response time.

Purvus meets with Benny McBride (Douglas Fowley) at a burlesque house.

Later, he meets with acquaintance Benny McBride (Douglas Fowley) to discuss a heist at a burlesque theater. Benny is there to watch his estranged wife Yvonne LeDoux (Adele Jergens), who is the featured dancer. He is anxious to secure some money to try and win her back and agrees to participate. When they discuss the next steps, Purvus gives Benny a phone number. Even though he insists that nothing be written down, after Purvus leaves, Benny writes the number inside a matchbook.

Both men are there to see dancer Yvonne LeDoux (Adele Jergens).

Benny, though, is unaware that the self-possessed and cautious Purvus is having an affair with Yvonne. They meet later in his motel room between shows.

Al Mapes (Steve Brodie) is one of the men Benny brings in on the heist.

To help with the heist, Benny brings in two other veteran criminals, Al Mapes (Steve Brodie) and William "Ace" Foster (Gene Evans), but does not introduce Purvus by name. It is only then that they learn that the scheme involves the robbery of an armored truck at Wrigley Field. Neither Mapes or Foster are anxious to be a part of one. The only successful one was in Chicago planned by a guy named Purvus. When they find out they’re talking to Purvus, they agree to participate. He plans to drill them until they know what to do and he insists that the robbery can only last 3 minutes. It should be noted, for a guy who doesn’t like putting things down on paper, there is a very elaborate drawing on the window shade in Benny’s apartment.

Purvus and Benny watch Foster work on his jalopy.

On the day of the robbery, Foster pretends to be fixing a jalopy next to the parked armored truck. Purvis and Benny, dressed like workers, stop to watch the repairs; Mapes sits in the getaway car. On Purvus' cue, Foster causes the car to backfire and blow smoke at the truck's guards. After the crooks put on respirators, they overwhelm the surprised guards and break into the truck.

The robbery in progress sans the smoke.

An employee at the field calls the police about the robbery in progress. Jim and Phillips are driving in the area and respond to the call much faster than Purvus anticipated. There is an exchange of gunfire and Phillips is hit, as well as Benny, but the robbers manage to escape in their getaway car.

Later, at the hospital, Jim learns that Phillips, his longtime friend, has died from his wounds. After trying to console Martha (Anne Nagel), he learns that rookie detective Danny Ryan (Don McGuire) is going to be his new partner.

The getaway car is found, along with discarded clothing.

The getaway car is found abandoned along with clothes and a lot of blood. That’s when the cops realize one of the robbers has been shot. Jim orders roadblocks put up around the city.

Mapes tries to avoid the roadblock, but the motorcycle cop won't let him.

Now dressed as dockworkers, Mapes, who is driving, tries to avoid the roadblock, but a motorcycle cop stops him and makes him go through the roadblock. While they’re being inspected, Benny manages to hold it together long enough for them to get through. It is only after they have driven away that one of the policemen realizes that he got blood on his uniform from one of the men. They take chase, but the robbers manage to get away.

Benny is an obvious pain. William "Ace" Foster (Gene Evans) is in the front seat with Mapes.

At his dockside hideout, Purvus refuses the pleas of the others to get Benny medical attention. When Benny learns he’s going to be left to die, he summons the strength to confront Purvus and demand his share of the take. Instead, Purvus shoots and kills him.

Purvus orders Foster to get rid of Benny's body and the car, so he dumps it into the harbor. However, before the car becomes completely submerged, a passing patrol car sees it. Police find Benny’s body and know they’re close to the robber’s hideout.

Purvus has planned to make his escape in a motorboat. However, Jim and Ryan, along with patrol officers, manage to retrace the car’s movements. Purvus sends Mapes ahead to get the boat ready, but when Foster makes his move to the boat, he’s clumsy and runs into objects on the pier, making enough noise that the police find and kill him.

Mapes, who is in the boat, manages to flee the scene. Purvus likewise manages to elude the police.

Later, when Jim and Ryan go to Benny's apartment, they find a photograph of Yvonne as well as Purvus’ telephone number. It is noted by Jim that there is no window shade on one of the windows; the one the map had been drawn on.

Purvus once more eludes police, but is ready to shoot it out if necessary.

The police use the number to track Purvus to a motor court. Purvus see them and manages to escape out the window before they get into his room. He does leave the clothes he was packing behind and the police forensics expert identifies lipstick on his collar as being a theatrical type.

Jim Cordell (Charles McGraw) and his partner Danny Ryan (Don McGuire) arrest Mapes at the burlesque house.

Hunting down the photo, Ryan discovers that it is Yvonne and where she’s dancing. When they go to the burlesque house, before they can talk to Yvonne, they find Mapes in the audience and manage to arrest him.

Under interrogation, Mapes tells all he knows.

Under interrogation, Mapes reveals that he was there looking for Purvus to get his cut of the loot. When he also tells them about Purvus' connection to Yvonne, the detectives put a tail on her and plant listening devices in her dressing room and car.

When, on orders from Purvus, Yvonne suddenly quits her job, the detectives are listening in. Ryan offers to impersonate Mapes, whom Yvonne has never met, in the hope that she will lead them to Purvus. Ryan confronts her in a café where she is to meet Purvus and tells her that he’s after his share.

At about that time, Purvus arrives. He ducks into a phone booth, which is one way he and Yvonne have used to communicate. Yvonne sees him and agrees to call Purvus for Ryan. She learns on the call that the man is a cop and he tells her to stall him and then make a run for it out the back. After Purvus hangs up, she hands the phone to Ryan and then runs out the back.

Yvonne drives while Purvus keeps a gun on Ryan in this publicity photo.

Ryan takes chase and catches her at her car, but Purvus is there and puts a gun in Ryan’s back. He tells Yvonne to drive and has Ryan sit in the front seat. Unknown to Purvus, Yvonne's car is also wired with a listening device, and as she drives, Ryan mentions street names for Jim's benefit. Sensing that Ryan is up to something, Purvus orders everyone to be quiet. He has Yvonne stop the car. He tells Ryan to run and then shoots the detective in the back.

Purvus is about to shoot Ryan a second time when Yvonne stops him.

Yvonne stops Purvus from shooting again and they flee the scene to Metropolitan Airport, which Ryan overhears. Before passing out, Ryan manages to call for help. When the police find him, Ryan tells Jim that Purvus and Yvonne are headed for the airport, where they have chartered a private plane.

What's left of Purvus after he's hit by a landing airplane.

The police notify the airport, and Purvus and Yvonne's plane is stopped on the runway. Purvus orders the pilot at gunpoint to take off anyway, but a landing plane stops him from doing it. The police surround the plane, but Purvus tries to shoot his way out. Purvus is shot and then crushed to death by a landing plane.

Jim shares a laugh with the still hospitalized Ryan.

Later, Jim visits a recuperating Ryan at the hospital and proudly shows him a detective magazine article about the case, in which their names are mentioned but barely readable and share a laugh.

Well, with a B picture, you don’t get reviewed in The New York Times, but Variety wrote, "RKO has concocted an okay cops-and-robbers melodrama ...[and] McGraw, Don McGuire and James Flavin, as cops, do very well. Talman and his cohorts put plenty of color into their heavy assignments. Adele Jergens attracts as a stripteaser and Talman's romantic interest."

Not high praise, but that was probably not the goal of the filmmakers. Made cheaply, the film did its purpose and took up screentime presumably at the bottom of a double-bill.

It’s not a bad movie; taut would seem to be an apt description as there really is never a lull in the action. But there really isn’t much of a subplot, the clandestine affair between Purvus and Yvonne. Oh, there is something going on, but there really isn’t much to talk about. It might have at least been juicier if Benny were still alive and the affair continued under his nose, so to speak, but that was not in the cards. It should be noted that Armored Car Robbery, along with The Asphalt Jungle, was one of the first heist films, with Armored Car Robbery coming out a day before the better known film, which is often credited as the first heist film.

Charles McGraw seems like a perfect fit for film noir. Good-looking and gravelly-voiced, he can play cop or bad guy with equal authority. Here, he’s the police detective out to revenge the death of his friend and partner. The film marks his first with a lead role and he seems to make the most of it. Still, lieutenant Jim Cordell is pretty much a one-dimensional character with a singular purpose. He doesn’t really crack a smile until the case is solved. But this seems to be a part McGraw was meant to play.

Adele Jergens got her start when, at 22, she was named “Miss World’s Fairest” at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York and later named the number-one showgirl in New York City in the early 1940s. She might remind you of Virginia Mayo, but she never would achieve her stardom. She landed a movie contract at Columbia in 1944, where the brunette actress became a blonde. She played the roles of blonde floozies and burlesque dancers in films like Down to Earth (1947) and The Dark Past (1948). In Ladies of the Chorus (1948), she was cast as the mother to Marilyn Monroe despite only being nine years her senior.

She’s back to playing a burlesque dancer in Armored Car Robbery. Again, the role is rather one-dimensional, as she gets very little to do except be the eye candy for Purvus played by William Talman.

Before Talman became famous as Perry Mason’s foil as Los Angeles District Attorney Hamilton Burger in that long running TV series (1957 to 1966), he played a significant amount of criminal types in film noirs. Armored Car Robbery marked a breakthrough for the actor. He would go on to appear in The Racket (1951), The Hitch-Hiker (1953), City That Never Sleeps (1953) and Crashout (1955).

One of the things I like best about films shot on location in Los Angeles is seeing all the things that are no longer there, like Wrigley Field, the red cars and the oil wells which used to dominate parts of the city. You also get a glimpse of what it was probably like behind the scenes at the LAPD at the time, with updates and bulletins getting to the police dispatcher on conveyor belts from the phone operators.

Not a great piece of filmmaking, Armored Car Robbery still isn’t a bad way to spend 67 minutes. You see a little of the LA that no longer exists, the start of the heist subgenre and you see an actor, Talman, at the top of his game. While you could always do better, you could do a whole lot worse.