The Asphalt Jungle

Just straight up, no-nonsense, hard-boiled crime fiction. The Asphalt Jungle has a pounding pulse that beats steadily from start to finish, and never takes any detours. It's gritty and tough - as you might discern from the film's title, which makes you think of deadly prey and desperate survival. Doc Riedenschneider (Sam Jaffe) has just gotten out of prison, and is wasting absolutely no time - basically heading straight from the cooler's exit doors to Cobby's (Marc Lawrence) joint so he can start setting up a jewel robbery that will net a fortune. He hires muscle Dix Handley (Sterling Hayden), getaway driver Gus Minissi (James Whitmore) and safecracker Louie Ciavelli (Anthony Caruso). Sponsoring the effort is Alonzo Emmerich (Louis Calhern) - who unbeknowenst to them is dead broke and planning a little backstabbing robbery of his own once the guys bring him the jewels to be fenced. In the end, absolutely nothing goes strictly to plan.

This film doesn't feel nearly two hours long - it has a brisk pace to it, and we always feel like we're moving along in a raft on the rapids, avoiding cops, setting off alarms, getting shot and throwing desperate punches. The professionals do their job, but often find themselves in tough situations. Along the way these guys leave a trail of heartbroken wives, girlfriends and mistresses which includes, as Emmerich's young snazzy bit on the side Angela Phinlay, a young Marilyn Monroe. She doesn't really reach any Oscar-winning heights of thespianism, but it's an interesting footnote to this film. Miklós Rózsa's score works in step with the blood-pumping pace of the action and cinematographer Harold Rosson's (The Wizard of Oz's director of photography) hand is steady. Director Huston took inspiration from the neorealist films springing up in Europe, giving everything as much naturalism as possible - and it really works well.

For me nothing beat watching the massive Sterling Hayden strut his stuff here - he'd be giving another memorable turn in a high profile crime role for Stanley Kubrick 6 years later in The Killing. In this, he keeps flashing us a down to earth side of himself who yearns to return to his beloved horses and get the hell away from the city. It's a vulnerability which really gives his character the most depth here, although I must also admit that Louis Calhern also has a lot to work with and performs marvelously well also. His crooked lawyer, obviously used to the finer things in life but foundering and in above his head earns our sympathy towards the end, despite his two-faced turncoat actions. He's not as hard as the weathered crooks, and as such has a much softer side - I felt so sorry for his bed-bound wife May (Dorothy Tree), who only ever yearns for his company, but is spurned and neglected. Yeah - Hayden and Calhern were great, although the former is really the take-away from The Asphalt Jungle for me personally, and Sam Jaffe's turn it the most celebrated. That far-away look Hayden gets when he talks of his horses is brilliant - he's really living his character.

So, this is a very memorable and exciting film noir heist classic - there are no slow spots, and it has an absolutely flawless rhythm to it that just carries you along. It's always interesting to see everything from the planning stage to it's execution, and finally the fallout - and here we don't miss a beat. The screenplay is economical, but at the same time comprehensively tells us where we're going and what's happening in detail. Sam Jaffe was nominated for an Oscar - his kindly Germanic mastermind Doc Riedenschneider a real original. Director Huston would also be nominated, along with Ben Maddow and John Huston for the screenplay and Harold Rosson for the cinematography. I think if it were to have won one of those, I'd have given it the screenplay award - such a tight, exacting, flowing and comprehensively complete job done on that. It thrums, pulses, hits hard and is unapologetically always in motion - The Asphalt Jungle makes crime feel like a high-stakes fight against time and inevitability. It whizzes by, and is very entertaining. A very fine film indeed.