Directed by John Huston
Written by Ben Maddow and John Huston
From the novel by W.R. Burnett
Photographed by Harold Rosson
Edited by George Boemler
Music by Miklos Rozsa
Starring
John McIntire as Police Commissioner Hardy
Louis Calhern as Emmerich (Lawyer)
Barry Kelley as Lt. Ditrich (Crooked Cop)
Brad Dexter as Brannom (Greedy Private Eye)
Marc Lawrence as Cobby (Bookie)
Sam Jaffee as Doc (Career Thief)
Anthony Caruso as Ciavelli (Safecracker)
James Whitmore as Gus (Getaway Driver)
Sterling Hayden as Dix (Muscle)
Dorothy Tree as Mrs. Emmerich
Marilyn Monroe as Angela
Teresa Celli as Mrs. Ciavelli
Jean Hagen as Doll
Helene Stanley as Dancing Teenager
. . .
THE CITY UNDER THE CITY . . .
. . .
Review by William D. Tucker.
The Asphalt Jungle is one of those old timey black and white crime thrillers-film noir it's called, with lots of shadows, mostly at night, great close-ups of expressive faces, and all of it suffused with an impending sense of doom. More specifically, The Asphalt Jungle is about a team of crooks who decide to crack open a safe full of jewels.
Why a team as opposed to just one determined thief, you may ask, after all this is a fictional story, isn't it? Why fuck with more than one protagonist? Well, in the stylized realism of this film, no one person has all the skills-to-pay-the-bills inside a single mind/body, y'know? This ain't that Tom Cruise superhuman power fantasy bullshit. Different people got different skills, different talents, different inclinations. One person is an experienced safecracker. Another guy has muscle and aggression. Yet another guy knows how to drive under pressure so as not to draw attention from cops or potential witnesses. Some people are ideas people-they can come up with schemes and/or actionable intelligence for potential jobs and so forth. And, of course, you've got to have folks with deep pockets who can bankroll criminal adventures. And people who can fence stolen stuff, convert ill-gotten goods into cash money. So many different discrete tasks that contribute to an underworld economy. It ain't all gonna come gift wrapped inside one singular messianic motherfucker. It takes a village, y'know?
Crime-true crime-is just another job. You put in your hours, you bug your co-workers by showing them pictures of your kids, you get paid, you go home, you might get hassled by cops wanting to put you in a line-up now and again-sure, sure, no life is free of hassles. But it's just another way of existing in the world. You can make money on either side of the line. Some people go back and forth across the line. Some land solidly on one side or the other. Either side can leave you feeling trapped, and full of envy at looking at what the other side has that you don't got but want so bad.
The Asphalt Jungle gives us a memorable set of cops and crooks, of people on both sides of the line.
For the crooks:
You've got Doc, the middle-aged German-American career thief whose Old World formality clashes humorously with both his pervy lust for younger women and his unflappable pragmatism.
There's Ciavelli, the professional safecracker who brews his own nitroglycerin 'soup' even as he lives the straight life of an Italian-American devout Catholic family man.
The muscle is a slow talkin' Kentucky good ol' boy named Dix-no kiddin'-who has taken a few too many billy clubs upside his head, but he's dependable.
You've got Cobby, a twitchy bookie who looks like he's cosplaying as John Waters.
There's Gus, the bartending, snitch-hating getaway driver who catches nonstop shit for having a hunched back.
And all this is bankrolled by the bent lawyer, Emmerich, who, much like Doc, is a man of a certain age and status who desires younger women, even as his depressed, bed-ridden wife plays solitaire upstairs.
For the cops:
You have a mixture of uniforms and trenchcoats, popping up here and there to make trouble for our enterprising hoods.
There's one plainclothes cop in particular-a Lt. Ditrich-who leans on the bookie Cobby for bribes-so that makes him a cop that's also a crook. Hey, you gotta be flexible in this economy.
There's also the creepy private investigator-Brannom-employed by Emmerich as a debt collector. This guy also rides the line between law and crime.
Most memorably, there's the self-righteous police commissioner-Hardy-who gives good copaganda to the compliant, conservative press corps aiming their stories squarely at the vast, squishy middle of conformists, taxpayers, and churchgoers. The commissioner is fun to watch as he skillfully transforms a press conference into a near-biblical morality play incorporating (for 1950) state-of-the-art stereo playback equipment. The commish is a genius. He might even actually believe in what he's saying. Who knows?
The plot centers on a scheme hatched by Doc who needs $50,000 in financial backing from Emmerich to execute. Emmerich goes for it, and the team is assembled-the safecracker, the getaway driver, the muscle for security-and the heist goes . . . well, y'know, complications ensue. Remember, as full of shit as the cops are, professional thieves aren't known for their altruism. The Asphalt Jungle depicts a harsh world where betrayal can emanate from any quarter. What's interesting here isn't so much the plot as the reactions of the characters, though the plotting here is both effective and convincing.
Film noir is known for its fatalism, its barbed dialogue, and its stylish shadows, and all those things are present here, but The Asphalt Jungle also incorporates a sociological element. There's no singular protagonist nor is there a singular enemy. Even the betrayers and hypocrites are positioned within a systematic legal-economic scheme that limits freedom of choice via a tangled web of inequality and perverse incentives. The commish is a political actor who derives social power from the enterprises of the crooks. The crooks target the jewels that exist because of capitalist prosperity. The press sells papers full of criminal intrigues and lawful punishments based upon real life crimes. The crooked cop and the bent lawyer play both sides for money. Cop and crook are joined at the hip. Law and crime define each other just as surely as savory and sweet. This kind of hard-boiled metaphysics makes The Asphalt Jungle memorable beyond the twists and turns of a first viewing. It's more than just entertainment. It offers a way of seeing the world.
