As one of the previous reviewers confessed this film had all the earmarks of a tax write-off which it was for producer and star Ralph Meeker. Meeker got old Hollywood names Ida Lupino, Lloyd Nolan and Bosley from Charlie's Angels David Doyle to join him in this project.Meeker is an armored car guard and he has a son Sean Roche in a reform school. Roche and his buddies from a reform school execute a well thought out plan along with Roche's sister Kerry Lynn to rob Meeker's armored car on its rounds collecting coins. Unlike bills completely untraceable, that part was well thought out. So was the actual robbery. But the idea is to do it and get back before this juvenile penal institution does its head count as these places are wont to do.Lloyd Nolan as the security investigator for the armored car company is the only one who doesn't just go through the motions. The rest act like they are waiting for paychecks to clear from Ralph Meeker. The rest of the cast it's like we're seeing an amateur theater group.This was Ida Lupino's farewell acting job. Too bad she couldn't go out on something better.

I would have rated this film with 1 star, but it got an additional 1 for Lloyd Nolan's brave performance as a security officer and an extra 1/2 for Ida Lupino as a shrewish wife, and an extra 1/2 for Ralph Meeker's role as a truculent drunk bad dad.But the MUSIC! Oh my God. The music. The horrible synthesizer music bubbling away like little rodential heartbeats as we are supposed to feel fear, tension, drama, interest, or some other emotion which we cannot feel because the music is popping like popcorn farts! Oh, Lord have mercy. If you are the kind of person who can't take bad music, please, be cautious -- the sound track may damage your internal organs.Also this film is a wasteland of bad late 1970s architecture, as it was filmed right before Post-Modern architecture saved us all from architectural cultural suicide. Just keep reciting your mantra, "Later on there would be good architecture. This was not the end of the world." Oh, and there's this insane fainting-gas stuff. The teens buy it at the local convenience store, no doubt. Another reviewer suggested the idea came from "Batman." I concur.And i will offer a sparkly reward to anyone who can tell me the name of the book that Ida Lupino is reading on her bed when Ralph Meeker comes home after a long day in the armoured car industry. My TV was too small to zero in on it, but i have the feeling that if i could have read that title, i would have been rewarded by some sort of fabulous in-joke. Or maybe not.Lloyd Nolan is okay. Ida Lupino is okay. Ralph Meeker is okay. The rest of this movie is insanely useless except to people who want to watch cars crash into one another over and over and over and over again.

This film is available on Mill Creek Entertainment's Action Classics 100 Movie Pack. After watching Trained to Kill: USA (the real reason I bought the box set) I switched to the next movie My Boys Are Good Boys, at first I assumed it was about rebellious youths and the whole movie would take place in the reformatory where they are held, but the story seemed to have more surprising twists and turns then an episode of 24. A somewhat easy escape leads to the youths robbing an armored truck. This is one of the best stories I have seen in a long time. What was also surprising was the performances. More notably David Doyle who played Harry Klinger the reformatory guard giving his my boys are good boys speech, Kerry Lynn as Priscilla, and the always hungry Chunky played by Robert Cokjlat. This film is a classic and a joy to discover.

In 1977, when I was still endeavoring to be an actor, Colleen Meeker, Ralph Meeker's spouse, spread the word that any actors who were hungry enough to work for "nothing", to get a "film credit" --she had the project for them. Keenan Wynn, who had been approached to be in the film, helped to get me an audition, and I was cast as the "reformatory guard".Remember there were no direct-to-video films made at that time. Until a couple of years ago, I was not even aware that this film made it to VHS. Most of the actors, myself included, agreed to turn their paychecks back into the production kitty, in lieu of promises to be paid when the film finally opened. Well it never officially opened in any theater that I was cognizant of. There was a full page ad taken out in Variety, and I saved that. I had heard a rumor that the film was shown once on late night local LA television.So it was an under the radar production. I never received a dime for doing it. It was not a SAG sanctioned picture, and therefore there never were residuals forthcoming. We thought of it as a slim-budgeted tax write off for Ralph Meeker's production company. It gave the opportunity for several over-the-hill burned out Hollywood stars to have one more Hurrah in front of an actual camera; specifically Lloyd Nolan, Ralph Meeker, and Ida Lupino (called Lupe by her friends). David Doyle was still pre-CHARLIE'S ANGELS at that point. My scenes were with him.It was directed by Bethel "Buck" Buckalew, aka Peter Perry, and Arthur P. Stootsberry. He cast himself as a cop in one scene. He was one of those just under the surface Hollywood Indie movers and shakers that had been around, and busy, since the 60's; semi-functioning as an actor, producer, writer, second-unit director, and sometimes director. He made, or was a part of production companies that made dozens of terrible, crappy, yet wonderfully bizarre non-union almost-seen-by-no one films; like KNOCKERS UP (1963), and CYCLE VIXENS (1978).As the other reviews and comments have suggested, the plot of the film, such as it is, had to do with some malcontent teenagers, bad boys from a reformatory, and one bad girl, who robbed an armored car. Ralph Meeker drove the armored car, as the security guard. His bad son planned the robbery to "hurt" his father. At the time, I was actually embarrassed to have my name associated with the pic, but after all these turgid decades, looking back in fond retrospect --I no longer want to disassociate myself from it. I love it. Recently I watched the film with 30 film club members, and we all laughed and enjoyed the movie. It was very camp, all those 70's hair-dos and clothes, car chases, and wretched vapid idiotic dialogue. It reminded me of viewing an Ed Wood film. Lloyd Nolan was the only actor to rise above the material, besides myself of course. The film is now, according to the internet, building a cult following. Go figure.