Asphalt Jungle, The (1950)
Director: John Huston
Honors:
Out of Hollywood’s largest and most conservative motion
picture studios comes a dark crime drama that takes a different viewpoint at lawbreaking.
A precursor to the modern heist movie, director John Huston delivers a gritty,
noir-style crime drama that caused stirs within MGM while achieving critical
acclaim. With its manner of displaying the preparation and execution of an
elaborate crime some feared such a movie would educate morally ambiguous
copycats to do likewise. Inevitably the picture would become a classic of the
crime genre, a tragedy of ill-conceived ideas that doom a cadre low level
thieves that bit off more than they can chew.
The Asphalt Jungle is a crime drama about a group of small-time
criminals and their attempt at an elaborate heist. The story details the
anatomy of a crime as recently released criminal mind “Doc” Riedenschneider
(Sam Jaffe) approaches crooked attorney Alonzo Emmerich (Louis Calhern) with
the idea of financing an elaborate jewel heist that promises to pay handsomely.
To carry out the crime they recruit a safecracker, Louis (Anthony Caruso), who
recommends Gus (James Whitmore), a diner owner with sympathy to small time
criminals as the getaway driver, who in turn recruits friend and small-time
crook Dix (Sterling Hayden) as their muscle.
We view the action from the viewpoint of Dix, whose dream to
buy back an old family farm and settle down with his girlfriend Doll (Jean
Hagen), getting away from the criminal life for good. The team carry out the
jewel heist, but things turn sour as one by one the cracks in the elaborate
plans begins to crumble the once touted plan. The group make it out with the
jewels, but Louis dies from a wound during the heist. Emmerich attempts to
double cross everyone and when authorities crack down on him, he commits
suicide. The generally kind hearted Gus gets arrested. As the only two to avoid
the police Doc and Dix separate, but Doc’s fascination to young pretty girls distracts
him enough for him to be caught up by pursuing law enforcement. This leaves us
with Dix, wounded from an earlier altercation making his getaway where he
arrives at the farm he yearned for before collapsing and dying. No one gets
away with the crime.
With this picture director John Huston aids in breaking a
long tradition of American cinema by producing a picture that is takes a
sympathetic view towards criminals. The story takes a look at offenders as they
perform their crime presenting it as a normal job that provides for their
everyday living to just get by. The way the plot is broken down to manifest the
process of planning and executing a crime allows the audience to share interest
in the characters’ needs to be successful, in a way allowing audiences to root
for the wrongdoers. Huston uses his cinematic eye to keep the visuals
interesting while coaxing inspired performances from an ensemble cast peppered
with bit actors and one newcomer in a small role that would quickly rise to
become an American icon.
With the help of fellow screenwriter Ben Maddow, John Huston
took on the task of adapting the 1949 novel by famed writer W.R. Burnett. MGM
studio head Louis B. Mayer was none too keen on producing a crime drama that
focused it sympathy on the criminals, but the studio’s production chief overruled
Mayer, pushing for the greenlight and The Asphalt Jungle would move into
the production schedule. Huston continued to consult Burnett, who had seen many
of his works successfully adapted for the screen including Little Caesar
(1930) and High Sierra (1941), gaining approval through the process.
Principle photography included location shooting in Kentucky
and the surrounding areas of Cincinnati, the unspecified location of the story,
to give the picture a feeling of authenticity with a gritty touch inspired by
the films such as Naked City (1948). For this picture Huston unusually
allowed himself to be inspired on the day of the shoots, making up his shots on
sight, composing them while blocking the actors without preconceived foresight.
He would frame shots with creative angles and depth that captured more in
singular takes, eliminating needs for multiple angles and editing, making the
picture simple, but visually much more interesting.
The main character of the film comes in the form of Dix, the
low-level criminal hired as the muscle on the heist while dreaming of getting
away from the life on the run and returning to the rural life of his youth with
his girlfriend Doll. Six-foot five-inch actor Sterling Hayden would come to
take on the role of our sympathetic character after befriending Huston while
protesting the House Un-American Activities Committee together in Washington DC,
questioning how the government was infringing on the First Amendment Rights of
Americans. Likewise, Sam Jaffe was a Red Scare protestor cast out of friendship,
him as the mastermind “Doc” who befalls to his own demons. Jaffe would earn
himself an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for this performance
before he found himself blacklisted for a period by Hollywood for his open
sympathies towards socialist thinking.
The role of Doll was populated by Jean Hagen, who has had a
few credits to her name, but was still a newcomer to Hollywood at the time. Here
in her first starring level role she provided a tragic performance as a woman
that sticks by her man to the tragic end. Supporting roles by James Whitmore
and John McIntire add to a strong cast of a characters. Whitmore, who shares
physical characteristics reminiscent of Spencer Tracy carries with him a
gruffer performance than the MGM headliner while providing a likable character
we hate to see get himself thrown in jail. McIntire once again provides an authority
figure character he would be commonly cast in, here as the police commissioner.
Veteran stage and screen actor Louis Calhern portrays a
relatively complex unlawful character in Emmerich, the crooked lawyer that attempts
to double cross everyone when he proves he cannot fulfill his role as the
heist’s financier. Part of Emmerich’s faults is manifested in his mistress
which makes a brief appearance in the picture in a young actress named Marilyn
Monroe in her first serious role. Monroe’s limited acting ability was molded by
Huston delivering a brief, but successful performance out of the sultry blonde
bombshell.
Despite The Asphalt Jungle being a critical acclaimed
picture box office numbers would show the picture barely earning a profit. So, for
the time Louis B. Mayer was financially correct to be against the picture, but
the film would continue to see benefits beyond its less than successful release
as the film was a critical darling. John
Huston would be nominated for Best Director and Best Screenplay at that year’s
Oscars, and along with nominations peppering throughout the year’s award scene the
picture continued to build on Huston’s legacy as one of Hollywood’s great
filmmakers. With time The Asphalt Jungle became known as one of the
finest crime dramas, as well as one of the great Hollywood of all time, and
perhaps the granddaddy of heist pictures.
Of course, it would not be complete account to not mention
the status the picture has as the breakout performance of Marilyn Monroe. In
only a brief appearance Monroe commands the screen with her distinctive look
from the moment of her reveal. Huston maximizes her sex appeal of which she
would flourish an entire career around, and despite not being a character that
does too much other than being the appealing eye candy, she leaves an indelible
mark on cinema and pop culture with what is easily her best acting performance.
Future publicity of The Asphalt Jungle capitalized on the appearance of
the sex symbol in the picture, making her a prominent figure on the reimagined
poster artwork that graced rereleases and home distribution of the feature.
All Monroe aside, The Asphalt Jungle is a wonderfully
composed picture that deserves the right of being called one of the great
Hollywood features of its day. The style of picture and its story would be
remade over and over in many iterations all of them attempting to recapture the
mastery of John Huston’s filmmaking ability. Its connection to the
controversial colorization process that interest a few in the late 1980s brought
the film back to the forefront in battles over creative visions of filmmakers,
allowing many to rediscover the idea of film as a artform being studied and
appreciated for creative choices. Today The Asphalt Jungle continues to
be a well-studied picture of cinema history that proves its inspirational
impact on filmmaking all these years later.
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