Film noir has many things that define it. Shady characters, anti-heroes, and femme fatales. There aren’t any real good guys, but certainly a fair amount of bad guys. There is one character, who isn’t good, but is sympathetic. That is Doc Erwin Reidenschneider. He is played very well by Sam Jaffe. He is the only cast member to be nominated for an academy award. Doc has just been released from prison. He doesn’t quite understand that crime does not pay.
Doc takes a plan for a jewel heist to a bookmaker, Cobby, (Marc Lawrence). He contacts an attorney, Alonzo D. Emmerich, (Louis Calhern). Emmerich fronts the money needed for the heist, and agrees to buy the jewels. A gang is recruited consisting of Dix Hanley, (Sterling Hayden), Gus Minissi, (James Whitmore) and Louis Ciavelli, (Anthony Caruso). They get everything set up and proceed with the robbery. Unfortunately, this perfect crime doesn’t go as planned. Due to some good police work, and betrayal on the inside, the life on easy street, will be a long hard road to travel.
Sam Jaffe’s shuttle performance helps this film. There are others as well. Sterling Hayden’s portrayal as gunman Dix Handley. He is doing the job but wants to settle down with his girlfriend, Doll Conovan. He also shows great loyalty to Doc, getting him out of a bad situation. Another good performance is by Louis Calhern as the duplicitous Alonzo D. Emmerich. He has been bankrupted by a life with his mistress, Angela Phinlay, (Marilyn Monroe). This was Monroe’s breakout film. She desperately tries to lie for Emmerich to the police, after he told her what to say. A fine performance is given by John McIntire, as police commissioner Hardy. He knows that something big is going down. He puts pressure on Lt. Dietrich, (Barry Kelly), to get this planned robbery stopped. McIntire had many movie roles, before becoming famous as wagon master, Christopher Hale on the long running show, Wagon Train. He did something that was very rare in Hollywood. He was married to his wife, Jeanette Nolan, for 56 years. They both acted and appeared together in westerns.
A quality film is always helped when there is a great screenplay. The Asphalt Jungle was written by John Huston , Ben Maddow and W. R. Burnett. Huston was a successful screenwriter for years, before moving on to directing. W. R. Burnett wrote the screenplay for Little Caesar, making Edward G. Robinson a star. He wrote crime novels and contributed much to film noir.
John Huston does an excellent job with this film. He has done what all directors want. That would be all around solid performances from his actors. He has made The Asphalt Jungle, a very character driven movie. He gets the feel of the movie. The beginning with doc getting out of prison, sets up the rest of the movie. The wait in the hall, to talk to the bookie about the heist. The end shows not quite redemption but happiness of a sort for both main characters. Huston was making quality films like this for nearly a decade. He had won an academy award the previous year, directing his famous father Walter, in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Very few directors have managed what Houston did. He manipulated his own genre, and pulled it off. The Asphalt Jungle is a masterwork of human behavior under stress.