The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery (1959)

Directed by

Charles Guggenheim

Genre

heist film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 29m

Rated

NR

Rating

6.1 of 10 from 36 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A college dropout is recruited to drive the getaway car for a bank robbery. The film follows the planning and execution of the heist, with local police and residents reenacting their real-life roles from an actual 1953 robbery attempt.

tensegrittydocumentary-likeslow-burngroundedsuspensefulrealisticstark

What happens

The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery (also called The St. Louis Bank Robbery, the film title in the opening credits) is a 1959 American heist film directed by Charles Guggenheim and starring Steve McQueen as a college dropout hired to be the getaway driver in a bank robbery. Based on a 1953 bank robbery attempt of Southwest Bank in St. Louis, the film was shot on location in 1958. It features some of the men and women from the St. Louis Police Department, as well as local residents and bank employees, reenacting their roles during the actual robbery attempt. Between filming and the film's release, Steve McQueen gained national recognition with his breakout role as Josh Randall in the TV series Wanted Dead or Alive. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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