History Main / ArmedBlag

* In ''Film/TheGodfather'' game, you can ambush enemy mobsters' racket trucks in order to pry cash from the guards' cold dead hands. You can also interrogate the driver for the location of a racket. You then have to return the cash to your safehouse before it becomes usable currency. The main threat to you is not the cops but a TeleportingKeycardSquad or two of enemy mobsters, though.

* Being an homage to the above, ''LifeOnMars''

* ''{{The Professionals}}''

Compare TrainJob. Subtrope of TheCaper.

* In ''TheGodfather'' game, you can ambush enemy mobsters' racket trucks in order to pry cash from the guards' cold dead hands. You can also interrogate the driver for the location of a racket. You then have to return the cash to your safehouse before it becomes usable currency. The main threat to you is not the cops but a TeleportingKeycardSquad or two of enemy mobsters, though.

* The half of ''{{MST3K}}'' veteran ''TheRebelSet'' that wasn't beatnik-sploitation revolved around [[HeyItsThatGuy the Chief from]] ''GetSmart'' planning an armored car robbery in Chicago -- with the twist that the robbers would do the job while travelling from New York to LA by train, during a layover; they'd be gone on the train, with the cash, before the police would know what happened.

* Happens in the second episode of ''Literature/{{Baccano}}!''. Given that it's pulled off by [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Isaac and Miria]], though, you can bet that the [[RefugeInAudacity execution is more than a little WTF-inducing]].

Compare TrainJob. Subtrope of {{Caper}}.

Compare TrainJob.

* ''TheSweeney''
* ''LifeOnMars''

The blag. Now, [[HaveAGayOldTime this ain't what it means today]]. This weren't no [[TheCon getting access with a high-class set of bluffs]]. And it ain't some [[{{xkcd}} fancy name for your blog]]. A blag was an armed robbery done ''right'', done old-school. Sometimes we done over the bank itself but more likely was tooling up a few villains to do over the security van moving the pay packets between em. One variant was them little sub-Post Offices that usually 'ad one pensioner serving and no thick glass, no thing. Piece of piss, that.

* Happens in the second episode of ''{{Baccano}}!''. Given that it's pulled off by [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Isaac and Miria]], though, you can bet that the [[RefugeInAudacity execution is more than a little WTF-inducing]].

* ''Circus of Fear'' (the 1966 film starring ChristopherLee, not [[CircusOfFear the trope of the same name]]) opens with an armed blag on the Tower Bridge.

* ''DiamondsOnWheels''

[[folder:Other]]
* When this trope gets evoked in recent times, it's often re-dressed, with the armored car becoming a prison transport van, and the money, a prisoner who must either be freed by his accomplices or killed before he can testify against them. That, or it's a jewelry shipment.

* In ''TheGodfather'' game, you can ambush enemy mobsters' racket trucks in order to pry cash from the guards' cold dead hands. You can also interrogate the driver for the location of a racket. You then have to return the cash to your safehouse before it becomes usable currency. The main threat to you is not the cops but a TeleportingKeycardSquad or two of enemy mobsters, though.
* The half of ''{{MST3K}}'' veteran ''TheRebelSet'' that wasn't beatnik-sploitation revolved around [[HeyItsThatGuy the Chief from]] ''GetSmart'' planning an armored car robbery in Chicago -- with the twist that the robbers would do the job while travelling from New York to LA by train, during a layover; they'd be gone on the train, with the cash, before the police would know what happened.
* "Professor Marcus" and his associates pull this off pretty neatly in ''TheLadykillers'' (1955). Unfortunately for them, the little old CloudCuckooLander lady they're using as a cover catches them ''in flagrante delicto''.
* ''{{The Lavender Hill Mob}}'' robbed an armored car of gold bullion.

The blag. Now, [[HaveAGayOldTime this ain't what it means today]]. This weren't no [[TheCon getting access with a high-class set of bluffs]]. And it ain't some [[{{xkcd}} fancy name for your blog]]. A blag was an armed robbery done ''right'', the old-style way.

Before you had your fancy-schmancy credit cards and online banking, you got all your money in good old-fashioned wonga. That's hard, solid cash.

So to get the money from the banks to the factories, they drove them about in security vans. The security was a bit rubbish back in the day. None of your exploding coloured-dyes and time locks.

What you did then was get your [[SawedOffShotgun sawn-off]] and some pickaxe 'andles, then attack it, RobinHood style, [[InTheHood making sure your faces were covered]]. You [[TapOnTheHead coshed the guards]] ([[EvenEvilHasStandards you didn't shoot anyone, no siree. Not back then]]) and took off with the loot before [[BritishCoppers the Sweeney showed up]]. They were armed and [[OldFashionedCopper not very nice]].

Evening, [[BritishEnglish me old china]]. How's your Ruby? Tad too spicy for ya? Well, each to 'is own. Personally, I love 'em.

Lemme tell you about a little thing that the criminal element used to engage in back in the day. You know, when [[TheSixties people smoked the 'ganja]] or [[TheSeventies 'ad really long 'air]].

The blag. Now, [[HaveAGayOldTime this ain't what it means today]]. It didn't involve [[TheCon getting access with a high-class set of bluffs]]. It wasn't a [[{{xkcd}} fancy name for your blog]]. It was an armored-car robbery done ''right'', the old-style way.

* In ''LayerCake'', this is referenced as being the crime of choice for [[LondonGangster london gangsters]] before they discovered drug dealing. At the end of the film, the two [[OopNorth Scouse gangsters]] relish the opportunity to rip off the MagnificentBastard via armed robbery, and they comment to the effect that it reminds them of old times.

[[AC:Film]]

[[AC:Live Action Television]]

[[AC:Manga and Anime]]
* Happens in the second episode of ''{{Baccano}}!''. Given that it's pulled off by [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Isaac and Miria]], though, you can bet that the [[RefugeInAudacity execution is more than a little WTF-inducing]].

[[AC:Real Life]]
* The most famous British RealLife example is the 1963 Great Train Robbery, which was actually woefully badly done and resulted in the arrests of nearly all involved.

[[AC:Other/Unsorted]]

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<<|CrimeAndPunishmentTropes|>>
<<|TheCaper|>>

* ''LifeOnMars''
* ''TheSweeney''

* Early seasons of ''TheBill''.
* ''{{The Professionals}}''
* Happens in the second episode of ''{{Baccano}}!''. Given that it's pulled off by [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Isaac and Miria]], though, you can bet that the [[RefugeInAudacity execution is more than a little WTF-inducing]].

* When this trope gets evoked in recent times, it's often re-dressed, with the armored car becoming a prison transport van, and the money, a prisoner who must either be freed by his accomplices or killed before he can testify against them. That, or it's a jewelry shipment.

* In ''TheGodfather'' game, you can ambush enemy mobsters' racket trucks in order to pry cash from the guards' cold dead hands. You can also interrogate the driver for the location of a racket. You then have to return the cash to your safehouse before it becomes usable currency. The main threat to you is not the cops but a TeleportingKeycardSquad or two of enemy mobsters, though.
* The most famous British RealLife example is the 1963 Great Train Robbery, which was actually woefully badly done and resulted in the arrests of nearly all involved.
* The half of ''{{MST3K}}'' veteran ''TheRebelSet'' that wasn't beatnik-sploitation revolved around [[HeyItsThatGuy the Chief from]] ''GetSmart'' planning an armored car robbery in Chicago -- with the twist that the robbers would do the job while travelling from New York to LA by train, during a layover; they'd be gone on the train, with the cash, before the police would know what happened.
* "Professor Marcus" and his associates pull this off pretty neatly in ''TheLadykillers'' (1955). Unfortunately for them, the little old CloudCuckooLander lady they're using as a cover catches them ''in flagrante delicto''.

* In ''LayerCake'', this is referenced as being the crime of choice for [[LondonGangster london gangsters]] before they discovered drug dealing.

A type of typically British [[TheCaper Crime Caper]] revolving around the robbery of an armoured car carrying a company's payroll. For obvious reasons, it will be set in more primitive times when workers received a pay ''envelope'' (full of cash) rather than a pay ''check'', necessitating the delivery of said cash by said armoured car. The cast is likely to be full of {{Violent Glaswegian}}s and other British Undesirables, notably {{London Gangster}}s.

* "Professor Marcus" and his associates pull this off pretty neatly in ''The Ladykillers'' (1955). Unfortunately for them, the little old CloudCuckooLander lady they're using as a cover catches them ''in flagrante delicto''.