Review of The Asphalt Jungle (1950) by Antonius B — 09 Aug 2018

Directed by John Huston, this noir heist film is strong and well-balanced. The main characters in the caper are well-developed - the brain, an older German-American guy who has just gotten out of prison (Sam Jaffe), the safecracker with a wife and little baby (Anthony Caruso), the driver, a hunchbacked diner owner (James Whitmore), and the southern-fried muscleman (Sterling Hayden). They are brought together by a bookie (Marc Lawrence), and plan to fence the jewels they steal to a rich lawyer (Louis Calhern).

To describe what happens would be to spoil the film, but suffice to say that even the best laid plans are fraught with peril, and unexpected events. I appreciated how Huston spent the time developing the characters and kept the story tight, without resorting to excess violence or plot twists. You still get the usual sorts of things - snappy dialogue, tense standoffs, double-crosses, etc - but it all feels intelligent. There are extended periods in the film without any background music, which I found refreshing. Each scene contributes to the story, and there is a spare feeling to the visuals, both of which make it feel authentic.

There is also a human element in the relationship Caruso has with his wife (Teresa Celli), and in Whitmore standing up to comments about his deformity. It's a small moment in the movie, but it's quietly powerful when he says with dignity, "What I carry on my back, I was born with it. I didn't grow it myself." Also humanizing are the separate dreams Jaffe and Hayden have of running away from it all afterwards (Jaffe to Mexico to be in the warm weather and 'young girls', ok, ugh; Hayden to re-purchase his family farm in Kentucky). Everyone has a weakness, a flaw, but at the same time, a positive attribute. Jaffe is smart and a gentleman criminal, but he's also a pervert. Hayden is tough and the opposite of greedy, but he's also a compulsive gambler (and loser) at the horse races.

Huston also shows us bad police behavior - pushing a witness to make a false ID, accepting a payoff from the bookie, and using their muscle when under pressure to make arrests. I loved how this was balanced by a little segment with the police radio from the commissioner (John McIntire), who flicks the calls of distress on one by one, and then points out: "People are being cheated, robbed, murdered, raped. And that goes on 24 hours a day, every day in the year. And that's not exceptional, that's usual. It's the same in every city of the modern world. But suppose we had no police force, good or bad. Suppose we had...just silence. Nobody to listen. Nobody to answer. The battle's finished. The jungle wins. The predatory beasts take over. Think about it.".

As a side bonus to all of this, you get Marilyn Monroe in a small role as Calhern's mistress. She was just 24, and this film, along with "All About Eve" from the same year, were the ones that started generating serious attention for her. Her performance is uneven at best, but when she turns on the charm with Calhern, or asks one of the cops "Do I have to talk to him? Couldn't I just talk to you?", her face so naturally assuming the look of a little girl, she's electric.

There's also a wonderful dance sequence from a young girl (Helene Stanley) in a diner, who cuts loose in a very charming way after given a bunch of change for the jukebox. What a fun moment that is, maybe my favorite in the entire film, and how it fit into the plot and Jaffe's proclivities is very clever.

My only small criticism is with Sterling Hayden, who got top billing, but just didn't resonate with me. I think it was something about the way he spoke, which seemed too 'heavy', if that makes any sense. Jean Hagen as his girlfriend was just average too. Calhern is brilliant as the shady lawyer, and the rest of the cast turn in solid performances. I considered a slightly higher rating, since you can so clearly see the effect this film had on others which would follow (Rififi from 1955 comes immediately to mind). Solid film.