THE NARROW MARGIN (1952)

Police detectives Charles McGraw and Don Beddoe are assigned to escort a mob witness (Marie Windsor) from Chicago to Los Angeles on a train.  Not even twenty feet outside her front door, Beddoe is gunned down, so now it's up to McGraw to get her the rest of the way all by himself.  They safely get to the train only to discover that there's an unknown number of mafia hitmen with itchy trigger fingers on board.

At only 71 minutes, THE NARROW MARGIN doesn't mess around, but still, despite the quick pace, I just couldn't stretch my imagination enough to believe that the police would allow a single cop to escort this supposedly super important witness across country by himself.  Not only that, but they knowingly allow all of these armed killers on board a normal passenger train?!  I call shenanigans.  I understand that the 1950's is light years away from the present time, but still the story seems pretty far-fetched to me.  That said, the acting and the camerawork are both good and I was mildly entertained.

THE NARROW MARGIN is not a bad film, just too improbable for me to get into.

ARMORED CAR ROBBERY (1950)

With only a runtime of 67 minutes ARMORED CAR ROBBERY doesn't mess around.  The opening scene shows the main bad guy (William Talman) casing the location for a armored car robbery: Los Angeles' Wrigley Field (later demolished in 1969).  Wrigley Field is at the end of the armored cars route and based on the phony robbery calls he's put in, they'll have 3 minutes to grab all the loot they can before the cops show up.  Unfortunately, on the day of the robbery, a passing police car (with Lt. Charles McGraw and partner in it) spoil their fun.  During the shoot-out, McGraw's partner is killed.  Now he's pissed and will stop at nothing to track down the bastards who killed his buddy.  Add onto that, one of the bad guys is banging the other bad guys burlesque dancer wife and you got yourself an exciting film!

No non-sense pace, strong direction by Richard Fleischer, nice camerawork, good acting all around by a talented cast, great script that doesn't pull any punches, awesome Los Angeles location scenery, lots of cool old cars.  Honestly, ARMORED CAR ROBBERY is just an excellent little film.  Yeah, it's dated, but I think fans of film noir and older heist films will have a blast watching it.  It would make a entertaining double-feature with Kubrick's similar THE KILLING.  Recommended.

Crew reflected in passing car.