Richard Fleischer's Armored Car Robbery is a lean little heist thriller, from which Stanley Kubrick apparently borrowed a thing or two six years later for The Killing. In a refreshing preview of truth in packaging, the title pretty much sums it up: it's the few-frills story of a criminal gang who knocks over a payroll truck at Los Angeles' Wrigley Field, followed by the inevitable falling out of thieves and their pursuit by John Law.

Coming together are several of the second string of noir actors. Charles McGraw stays as gruff as a minion of the law as he was as a menace to society; he takes the heist heavily because his partner was killed in the shoot-out. Leader of the gang is ruthless William Talman, who starred in almost as many noirs as Raymond Burr, for whom he was to co-star in the Perry Mason television franchise; while falling just shy of Burr's opulent evil, he could seed a few nightmares himself. And bringing up the distaff side is tough blonde Adele Jergens, here a `Burly-Q' headliner who never seems to lose her heavy white stole. She's making hay with Talman even though her older husband, on his uppers, also dies as a result of the truck robbery (when he pleads for a doctor for his gunshot wound, Talman shoots him, muttering his mantra `No loose ends').

Fleischer, son of legendary animator Max, was not one of the poets of the noir cycle but a wrap-it-up director with a racing pulse; The Narrow Margin (also starring McGraw) remains his best-known film. In later years he directed a number of big action pictures, few of any real distinction. His metier was probably these brief, shoestring programmers, because bigger budgets and longer running times slowed him up and made him ponderous (viz. Tora! Tora! Tora!). Armored Car Robbery endures as a testament to how good he was with the swift and blunt approach.