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.

STRAY DOG (1949)

Inspired by a true event, Jules Dassin's THE NAKED CITY and the writings of Georges Simenon (and maybe even De Sica's BICYCLE THIEVES), STRAY DOG is the story of a rookie homicide detective (Toshiro Mifune) who's gun is pickpocketed one hot summer day on a crowded bus.  He almost immediately realizes what happen and chases the criminal, but the man gets away.  Mifune becomes obsessed with getting his gun back and then riddled with guilt when the gun is used in random crimes.  Mifune's boss teams him up with veteran detective Takashi Shimura to locate the gun and stop the rabid dog that is using it in a one-man crime spree.

STRAY DOG is an interesting film.  It's pretty cool seeing Kurosawa's take on the police procedural film noir genre (my favorite is still T-MEN), but STRAY DOG is simply too long (the black market montage and the interview scenes towards the end should have been trimmed down) and the script is clumsy at times.  Most notably...the borrowed gun moment was totally unneeded.  That said, it's still a good film that's definitely worth a viewing.  Good acting, fair script, nice cinematography, runtime that's probably around 20 minutes too long, a young Isao Kimura.  Also, this is the first of nine writing collaborations between Akira Kurosawa and Ryuzo Kikushima.  Eleven, if you count TORA! TORA! TORA! and RUNAWAY TRAIN.