An armored truck driver and his ex-wife conspire with a gang to have his own truck robbed on the route.
After being away for a few years, working class Steve Thompson returns to his hometown of Los Angeles to move back into the family home with his parents and younger brother. Steve quickly falls into old, familiar routines: getting his old job as a driver at the Horten's Armored Car Service where his Pop works, hanging out at his old watering hole the Round Up bar and restaurant despite many of the faces there having changed, and reuniting with two people, his friend, Police Lt. Pete Ramirez, and his ex-wife, Anna. Ma Thompson knows that despite the two having only lasted as husband and wife for seven months, Steve cannot stay away from Anna, and both Ma and Pete know that Anna is bad news for Steve. And although Steve believes he and Anna have made an emotional connection with each other all over again, he learns that she has ended up marrying a gangster, Slim Dundee, a regular at the Round Up. With the emerging circumstance, Steve devises a spur of the moment plan appealing to Slim's crooked side not only to get Anna back but to obtain enough money for he and Anna to escape together. But what some state may not be their true motivation, which affects what happens between Steve, Anna and Slim.—Huggo
Romantic, obsessive Steve Thompson is drawn back to L.A. to make another try for Anna, his former wife. However, Anna belongs now to the L.A. underworld. Steve believes he can rescue her, ignoring the advice and warnings of people who would try to save him. He commits himself to a dangerous course of action that quickly takes everyone somewhere unintended.—<[email protected]>
More than a year after their divorce, Steve Thompson can't get fickle ex-wife Anna out of his mind. And Anna appears to want to get back together with Steve, who finds she's still nothing but trouble for him. Soon, despite herself (or is it?) she has him in an unstable triangle with gangster Slim Dundee, and up to his ears in crime...—Rod Crawford <[email protected]>
While driving an armored car in a lonely road, Steve Thompson recalls his life, after divorcing his beloved wife Anna and working in many places in the United States of America, from the moment he returned home in Los Angeles a few days ago. Although traveling for almost two years trying to forget Anna, he is still obsessed with her. However, when he arrives in town, the sentimentally inconstant Anna gets married with the gangster Slim Dundee. Steve plans a heist of the armored car with Slim, expecting to double-cross the criminal and escaping with Anna to another city to begin a new life, but things do not happen as he intended it was.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Steve Thompson (Burt Lancaster) comes back to his Los Angeles home to see his Mother, Father and brother after a few years of drifting around the country following his divorce from Anna (Yvonne De Carlo). He goes into the Round Up, the dancing hall restaurant where he and Anna spent many hours where he bumps into local police detective Lt. Pete Ramirez (Stephen McNally) who asks if he has seen Anna. Steve tells Pete that he hasn't come to find Anna but only to see how things have changed in his absence. He gets his old job back driving for Horton's armored car service but seems to be going through the motions, until he bumps into Anna accidentally and they start seeing each other again. They reminisce about their earlier days, even discussing the reason that they got divorced. In Steve's absence Anna has gotten involved with Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea), a serpentine gangster whose hold on Anna (she admits) is his money. Initially Steve and Anna decide to stay away from each other but are drawn together in a very easy way. They begin a clandestine affair, and Steve is convinced that Anna will return to him. Even after she marries Slim, Anna continues her affair with Steve allowing him to rest on the idea that someday they will be together. Slim catches them together, and to cover, Steve makes up a story that includes robbing the armored car service he drives for. Slim shoots down Steve's idea because he believes that armored car services cannot be robbed successfully. Convincing Slim that as the inside man at the armored car service and as the driver of the delivery car Steve can divert the guards and ensure that Slim and his gang can escape with the money. Steve and Slim form an uneasy and untrusting collaboration, even using their own aggression over Anna as a front to shield their plans from the local flat foot, Lt. Pete Ramirez. Steve and Anna plan from the beginning to double cross Slim and escape with the money to a happier life together, but it seems that in this case lovers make strange bedfellows.
