The Asphalt Jungle is a heist film noir co-written and directed by John Huston.\u00a0 It stars Sterling Hayden, James Whitmore, Louis Calhern and Sam Jaffe with a supporting role for Marilyn Monroe.\u00a0 Sam Jaffe plays \u201cDoc,\u201d a criminal mastermind who was recently released from prison and is now recruiting a team to steal a million dollars-worth of gem stones from the safe of an upscale jewelry business in the unnamed mid-western city in which the story takes place.\u00a0 Local racket boss Cobby points Doc to Alonzo Emmerich (played by Louis Calhern) as the fixer who can finance the caper and line up the fences to sell the jewels.\u00a0 He also finds him a getaway driver (James Whitmore as Gus Minissi), a safe cracker (Anthony Caruso as Louis Ciavelli) and a \u201chooligan\u201d (Sterling Hayden as Dix Handley).<\/p>\n
(Spoiler Alert \u2013 Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)<\/strong><\/p>\n As the team assembles Doc privately discusses with Dix his distrust of Emmerich and tells him that he will depend on Dix to protect the loot in case Emmerich attempts to double-cross them.\u00a0 There is a subplot around a dirty cop; Lt. Ditrich who receives protection money from Cobby but is being pressured by the police commissioner to find Doc.\u00a0 And we learn more about Emmerich\u2019s personal life and his problems.\u00a0 Emmerich has an aging bed-ridden wife and a young beautiful girlfriend; Angela Finlay (Marilyn Monrie) that he keeps in a love nest downtown.\u00a0 And maybe not coincidentally he\u2019s broke and can\u2019t fund the heist.\u00a0 But his associate\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Bob Brannom; a hard-boiled private detective who doesn\u2019t see crime as an obstacle to making money, talks Cobby into fronting the heist expenses and throws in with Emmerich in a plan to steal the jewels and leave the heist team out in the cold.<\/p>\n At this point we watch the team in action.\u00a0 And it\u2019s like clockwork.\u00a0 Right up until the point when the nitroglycerin blows the door off the safe.\u00a0 Somehow the blast triggers an alarm at a bank down the block from the jewelry store.\u00a0 And when the security guard shows up at the back door Dix flattens him with one punch to the jaw.\u00a0 But his gun flies out of his hand hits the ground, discharges and shoots Louis Ciavelli in the gut.\u00a0 Gus takes Louis home and tries to get a doctor who will keep his mouth shut about the gunshot wound while helping his friend.\u00a0 Meanwhile Doc and Dix show up at Emmerich\u2019s to transfer the loot and get their cut.\u00a0 But when Brannom sticks them up Dix shoots it out with him.\u00a0 Dix is wounded in the side and Brannom ends up dead.\u00a0 Doc convinces Emmerich to fix his mistake by using his legitimate connections to work a deal with the insurance company to get $250,000 in return for the return of the jewels.<\/p>\n Meanwhile the police have offered a reward for the capture of Doc whom they assume is responsible for the theft.\u00a0 A witness comes forward saying that Doc had been seen entering Cobby\u2019s gambling house and Lt. Ditrich is given an ultimatum to find Doc.\u00a0 Ditrich slaps Cobby around until he confesses and gives up everyone involved in the heist.<\/p>\n The police go to arrest Emmerich and he shoots himself to death rather than go to jail.\u00a0 They arrest Gus and go looking for Louis but he has already died of his wounds.\u00a0 Dix has a girlfriend Doll who hides him and Doc while the police search the city for them.\u00a0 Doc decides to head out on his own and catches a cab that will take him to Cincinnati.\u00a0 But stopping off at a caf\u00e9 he indulges in watching a young woman dance provocatively to a jazz tune a little too long and a couple of state troopers recognize him and arrest him.\u00a0 Dix and Doll drive out of town, heading for Dix\u2019s boyhood home in Kentucky.\u00a0 But Dix has been slowly succumbing to his gunshot wound and just as he reaches the farm his family used to own, he collapses and dies.<\/p>\n This sounds like a pretty wild story and it is.\u00a0 But it\u2019s very well done.\u00a0 Jaffe, Hayden, Whitmore and Calhern do a splendid job portraying their characters and selling the plot.\u00a0 And even the secondary characters like Monroe and Caruso are very strong and provide an entertaining atmosphere for this noir.\u00a0 I may be biased but I\u2019ve always thought this was one of the best crime dramas ever made.\u00a0 And this was done in the days when the Hays Code limited the amount of violence that could be displayed in a motion picture and when special effects were basically non-existent.\u00a0 I would say this movie gets my highest rating for fans of crime and noir films.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Asphalt Jungle is a heist film noir co-written and directed by John Huston.\u00a0 It stars Sterling Hayden, James Whitmore, Louis Calhern and Sam Jaffe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239,237],"tags":[1301,1910,1556,1563,2737,5013,2952,5012],"class_list":["post-34668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-reviews","tag-crime-drama","tag-film-noir","tag-james-whitmore","tag-john-huston","tag-louis-calhern","tag-marilyn-monroe","tag-sam-jaffe","tag-sterling-hayden"],"yoast_head":"\n