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 The Asphalt Jungle
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reviewed by Bruce Cantwell What's so darned interesting about criminals? The hallmarks of film noir: terse dialogue, seedy characters and ubiquitous greed, creep through John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle in abundance. Sterling Hayden plays Dix Handley, a down-on-his-luck gambler who would like nothing better than to return to his home state of Kentucky and raise the horses that have put him in his present position, owing $2300 to the small-time bookie Cabby, sleazily played by Marc Lawrence . From the moment he relates his dream to female acquaintance Doll Conovan (Jean Hagen) we know that he will do something desperate to try and attain his dream and that he'll die in the process. During the days when it was a Hollywood obligation to show that crime doesn't pay, you could count on the demise of bank robbers and ne'er do wells. In this film, the presence of a corrupt cop is counterweighted by an impassioned speech from the police superintendent about the cries for help from victimized citizens and the ninety-nine percent of good cops who regularly came to their rescue. So much for the good guys. The interesting guys are Doctor Erwin Riedenschneider (Sam Jaffe) who comes fresh from the slammer with a caper in his pocket and the big-time criminal attorney Alonzo D. Emmerich (Louis Calhern) who would finance the scheme if he weren't flat broke. In addition, we get Marilyn Monroe's debut as Emmerich's bimbo girlfriend and Anthony Caruso as a good, honest family man safe cracker. When he pulls out a picture of his kid, early on, I said to myself, "He's a goner." One nod to grittiness. There's a scene where the crooked cop is slapping the bookie around. Against a dark background, one can see the sweat fly off the bookie's face. That wasn't set up. That was a real slap.
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