As part of our celebration of all things horror in the month of October, we’re having some of our favorite filmmakers, writers, bloggers, and so on write guest blogs for us all month talking about their favorite things in the world of horror and/or Halloween.
Today’s entry may be a bit of a cheat as far as horror goes, but seeing as how I've been part of a bank robbery and know first hand that it's scary, I'm going to let this count. Travis Mills, the independent filmmaker we brought you an interview with a few days ago, just finished up shooting on his newest film The Men Who Robbed the Bank. In honor of that film, Mills was kind enough to share with us his five favorite bank robbery scenes in film!
League of Gentleman
This British caper directed by crime film maestro Basil Dearden features an Ocean's Eleven like set-up, one man gathering his crew, but turns out to have more the grit and biting humor of Dirty Dozen. Jack Hawkins, a underrated actor, leads the film with a stellar cast and Dearden keeps the thrills and laughs coming throughout. The robbery itself is slick and unforgettable. The Bank Dick
If not for Woody Allen's superb debut Take the Money and Run, W.C. Field's heist in his masterpiece The Bank Dick might be the best ever comic take on a bank robbery. Still Field's is my favorite and along with so many other hilarious blunders the grouchy boozing pervert gets into throughout the film's short run time, the robbery and following chase are pure cinema entertainment. The Getaway
Sam Peckinpah and Steve McQueen in an adaptation of a Jim Thompson novel, how can you beat that? Add Ben Johnson, Ali McGraw, ultimate sleaze bad guy Al Lettieri, terrific action sequences including one of my favorite bank heists and you have one of the most terrific crime action pictures ever. The Robber
This German/Austrian collaboration is a bare-bones almost Bressonian take on the genre, based on a true story about a famous runner with a compulsion to rob banks. It slow however relentless and unforgiving and I love every moment of it.
Heat
How can you talk about bank robberies and not mention Heat? Michael Mann's crime epic is a brilliant picture on so many levels. The heist near the end of the film is itself one of the most impressive sequences in cinema history. It's a credit to Mann's power as a director, not that he can stage a scene like this with such success but that he can develop each of the film's characters with the help of his actors to make a bank robbery and shootout a emotional and invested experience. -Travis Mills
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