One powerful fact about Richard Fleischer’s Armored Car Robbery (1950) is that it directly challenged the restrictive Hays Code by depicting the meticulous planning and execution of a heist in explicit detail—right down to the timing of engines, roadblocks, and character interactions. Despite the Code’s prohibition against showing “methods of crime” in a way that could inspire imitation, the film balances on that edge: it doesn’t glorify the criminals (they’re swiftly captured or killed), but it

Kiyoshi Kurosawa on Richard Fleischer’s “Armored Car Robbery” (1950): “Well, first of all, only a very few people know about this [film]. It’s one of my favourite movies. Everything is perfectly made. No matter how many times I watch it, it’s a perfect movie. This is a movie where every single action tells the whole story, and it moves forward at an incredible speed.” (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Letterboxd, 2025) | History of Cinema