Quand la ville dort

I hadn't seen The Asphalt Jungle for nearly 30 years until tonight, I think I must have (wrongly) considered it to be a "modern film", ie post rock'n'roll and dismissed it as too earthy as a result. Well I was wrong, it's certainly a Golden Age film made with high production values, with all the right actors, direction, music and story the Golden Age had produced. The music especially links it back to Double Indemnity and of course Huston to The Maltese Falcon, Jaffe to Lost Horizon etc. It was simply a signpost to the type of films to come , the ones I avoid.

It's gritty, as realistic as a gritty fantasy could be in 1950, as realistic as I want. The multi character interplay sticks in the mind, everyone's grafting and ready to dump on the next guy, apart from The Hooligan who dumb as he is really has a heart. It's Sam Jaffe's film though, his calculating but flawed dirty old man character was a classic perv-ormance, nowadays we would not have been spared the sleaze, but he walked a fine line successfully.

And again, the sleazy relationship between Uncle Louis Calhern and young Marilyn Monroe was perfectly handled.

All in all a marvellous film from the twilight years of the Golden Age.

You're back outside, after a little time confined, you have a plan for a new caper, that's quite refined, just need to find a willing backer, muscle, driver and safecracker, what could possibly go wrong, it's all defined.

Doc Erwin Riedenschneider played by the great Sam Jaffe seeks a big payday but things don't go quite as well as he'd been planning as unforeseen events, mistrust and double crossing scupper his best laid plans. Alonzo D. Emmerich is perfect as the dodgy lawyer financing the deal and Sterling Hayden just as impressive as the muscle with an attitude.

Another fantastic piece of Film Noir that perpetually delivers.

This is an amazing film and one that serious film buffs need to see. However, while it is clearly an example of Film Noir, it represents a very realistic style of Noir--lacking the dramatic excesses of some (such as KISS OF DEATH and its wheelchair scene) or super-snappy dialog (like DRAGNET). I actually like all three types of Noir films but when it comes to realism, this film ranks up there with HE WALKED BY NIGHT and T-MEN--and this is certainly good company.

The movie is a step-by-step case study of a crime being organized, executed investigated and resolved. While it could have been shot documentary-style (like a few Noir films, such as NAKED CITY), it was handled like a traditional crime drama except that the focus tended to shift back and forth between the criminals and the police--though the focus tended to be on the criminals a bit more often. This really helped make the movie exciting and worked very well. What also helped the movie was the exceptional acting by mostly unknowns or long-time character actors. Good Noir usually does NOT star big names and having the film anchored by Sterling Hayden (who was amazing), Sam Jaffe and Louis Calhern was an excellent move. To assist them were some other exceptional actors, such as James Whitmore and Marilyn Monroe (in a small but exceptional role).

However, despite the amazing acting, the biggest star of the film was the taut script. From start to finish, it sparkled and abounded with realism and an unflinching message that crime doesn't ultimately pay. The total package is one of the best Noir films ever--only exceeded by a small number of movies (such as my favorite Noir, THE KILLERS). See this film!

By the way, please take a look at the very amazing biography of Sterling Hayden on IMDb. I did and was totally blown away--what an amazing life he led. It all sounded so amazing that if they turned it into a film, many would think it was fiction!!

THE ASPHALT JUNGLE is a sometimes unsung triumph of director/writer John Huston. Sterling Hayden plays a down and out hoodlum who pairs up with cheesecake obcessed master thief Sam Jaffee. The seedy urbane characters that populate their world keep you glued to the screen. Marilyn Monroe is perfect as the spoiled mistress of crooked lawyer Louis Calhern. James Whitmore deserved an Oscar for his role as Gus, the diner owner with a fondness for kittens and crime. Has a great look, will make you pine for more black and white.

Out of MGM, The Asphalt Jungle is directed by John Huston and based on the novel of the same name by W.R. Burnett. It stars Sterling Hayden, Jean Hagen, Sam Jaffe, Louis Calhern, James Whitmore, Teresa Celli, and in a minor but important role, Marilyn Monroe. Miklós Rózsa scores the music and Harold Rosson photographs it in black & white. Plot sees Erwin "Doc" Riedenschneider (Jaffe) leave prison and quickly assemble a gang to execute a long in gestation jewellery heist. However, with suspicion rife and fate waiting to take a hand, the carefully constructed caper starts to come apart at the seams.

John Huston liked a tough movie, having given film noir in America a jump start with The Maltese Falcon in 1941, he also that same year adapted W.R. Burnett's novel High Sierra. Burnett also had on his CV crime classic stories Little Caesar & Scarface, so it's no surprise that Huston was drawn to The Asphalt Jungle. As it turned out, it was a match made in gritty urban heaven.

The Asphalt Jungle was one of the first crime films to break with convention and tell the story from the actual side of the criminals. Where once it was the pursuing law officers or private detectives that were the heavy part of the plotting, now under Huston's crafty guidance we have a study in crime and a daring for us to empathise with a bunch of criminals, villains and anti-heroes. As a group the gang consists of very differing characters, and yet they have a common bond, for they each strive for a better life. Be it Hayden's luggish Dix, who dreams of buying back his father's horse ranch back in Kentucky, or Jaffe's Doc, who wants to retire to Mexico and surround himself with girls - it's greed and yearning that binds them all together - With alienation and bleakness, in true film noir traditions, featuring heavily as the plot (and gang) unravels.

With gritty dialogue and atmospherically oozing a naturalistic feel, it's also no surprise to note that Huston's movie would go on to influence a ream of similar type films. Some good, some bad, but very few of them have been able to capture the suspense that is wrung out for the actual heist sequence in this. Fabulous in its authenticity, and with that out of the way, it then sets the decaying tone for the rest of the piece. Interesting to note that although we are now firmly in the lives of the "gang", including their respective women (Hagen, Monroe & Celli all shining in what is a very macho movie), we still know that the society outside of their circle is hardly nice either! This is stripped down brutalistic film noir. Merciless to its characters and thriving on ill fate, and closing with a finale that is as perfect as it gets, this is a top line entry in what is the most wonderful of film making styles. 9.5/10