The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Asphalt Jungle (1950) – J. Huston

This textbook example of how a major jewellery heist comes together and then falls apart afterward from director John Huston excels in presenting the little details.  Indeed, it is those human frailties (which may not be unique to the criminal class) that sow the seeds of destruction.  We follow Sterling Hayden from start to finish, as he escapes from the law after another in a string of petty knockovers, meeting up with mastermind Sam Jaffe and financial backers bookie Marc Lawrence and lawyer Louis Calhern, then the job itself and its aftermath.  Hayden just wants to get some dough to go back to his old Kentucky home where his folks raised racehorses (but he keeps blowing it all at the track).  He doesn’t seem to notice that clip joint girl Jean Hagen loves him, but she keeps hanging around.  It turns out that Calhern is broke and keen to doublecross the gang by taking the jewels and fleeing to Mexico.  He’s got an apartment set up for mistress Marilyn Monroe while his ill wife pines away for his company.  Calhern is the biggest heel in the picture, although things really unravel due to the unfortunate but pragmatic relationship between one of the gang and a corrupt cop being squeezed by the police commissioner.  The commissioner himself gets the final word, telling us that the cops are the only thing standing between ordinary people and the predators of the (asphalt) jungle.  In the end, I didn’t have that sense of existential collapse that you find in Rififi or the works of Jean-Pierre Melville, the bittersweet feeling of predictable loss; instead we get a more matter-of-fact rendering that nevertheless is revealing in its portrayal of the human condition.