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| The Asphalt Jungle | |||
"Huston liked the book, but he stood it on its head. It’s a book about the terribly difficult time the cops are having keeping control of the new post-war urban jungle. Huston didn’t have much time for poor cops, so he made it a picture about the gang doing the job. Crime was just a left-handed form of human endeavour… The gang in The Asphalt Jungle are caught too, in the end, but we’re rooting for them. They’re all grubby professionals, with a bit of hooligan thrown in. That’s how mastermind Doc Riedenschneider can get along with muscle Dix Handley and Alonzo Emmerich, the crooked lawyer who will try to cheat the others. Not forgetting the smaller people in the gang — Cobby, Gus and Angela, even if most of what Angela does is curl up on the sofa and ask her Uncle Lon about the times they’re going to have. They’re gamblers, and most gamblers are doing it to lose. ... You wouldn’t want any of these crooks in your life — there’s no pretending they aren’t nasty and ugly. Doc only gets caught because he’s got such a terrible, helpless thing for pretty girls that he stays to watch one dancing to the jukebox. Stays maybe 20 seconds too long, so the cops come in and he can see her dancing for the rest of his life in jail. Nor is there any reason to think that Doc is going to be a fond old uncle to any girl. No, he looks at them in a very blunt way. That’s the thing about The Asphalt Jungle. It just sits there like a corpse in the dawn gutter. It’s not that these criminals are going to go off with the money from the jewellery robbery and look forward to Quo Vadis. They’re left-handed in the worst way: used to hitting you with that left fist as they shake hands with the right. They are people who have looked at society and said, “Why not try it the other way, the outlaw way? Is there really that much difference?” If you visit the rest of Huston’s work, you can feel that same icy doubt or indifference time and again. It’s like the way the camera looks at Angela on her sofa — when Angela is Marilyn Monroe… Huston was clearly taken with her and not disposed to look elsewhere. People told him the girl couldn’t act, but he said if they used her carefully it would be a few minutes before anyone noticed that. And a few minutes would be enough, because the girl knew she was a jungle creature. And the picture is famous for being her break." – David Thomson, Sight & Sound "If you want to know where the The Usual Suspects or Reservoir Dogs came from, look no further than this “heist-gone-wrong” movie, John Huston’s greatest noir thriller." – Wally Hammond, Time Out London |
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| USA 1950 | |||
Director: John Huston With: Sterling Hayden (Dix Handley), Louis Calhern (Alonzo D. Emmerich), Jean Hagen (Doll Conovan), James Whitmore (Gus Minissi), Sam Jaffe (Doc Erwin Riedenschneider), John McIntire (Police Commissioner Hardy), Marc Lawrence (Cobby), Barry Kelley (Lt. Ditrich), Anthony Caruso (Louis Ciavelli), Teresa Celli (Maria Ciavelli), Marilyn Monroe (Angela Phinlay), William Davis (Timmons), Dorothy Tree (May Emmerich), Brad Dexter (Bob Brannom), John Maxwell (Dr Swanson) 112 mins, 35mm (1,37:1), black and white PG low level violence Auckland Film Society |
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