Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Nonureva Really Surprised!

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Rexanne It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

atlasmb This is a caper film and one of the best examples of film noir. The black and white photography is stylish and atmospheric, the music is dramatic and sensitive to the visuals, the acting is terrific.Of course it helps to have a cast that includes Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Jean Hagen, James Whitmore, Sam Jaffe and Marilyn Monroe. Their characters populate the city's "jungle"--the dark underside where each denizen has his vice. The film suggests that its inhabitants are infected with an urban disease, being too far from the land. This is the antithesis of "Spencer's Mountain", for example, where goodness wins out, because their lives are grounded in the soil."The Asphalt Jungle" is one of the best examples of film noir and has significantly influenced many films that followed. Like "The Maltese Falcon", it explores the dreams of those who are always looking for the big score. The final scene is nearly perfect in its symbolism and execution. This is a film that can be watched many times and enjoyed for its literate writing.

frankwiener Lately, I've been watching so many mediocre and, yes, really bad films that I needed to sit down and write out a short list of the essential elements in the making of a good movie. Even after many viewings, this movie actually improves with each look. No, they don't make them like this anymore. Here is the brief list that I composed:1. Good writing: In this case, the screenplay by Ben Maddow and John Huston, the director, provides outstanding dialogue that is both lean and powerful. Almost every word has a purpose, revealing important information about each character or explaining the background as well as the action that is to follow.2. Careful casting and a successful delivery by very talented cast: Without exception, every member of this cast has an important contribution to the overall success of the product. As a viewer, I sense that they are energized by each other as a team, in addition to their positive interaction with excellent writing and direction.3. Direction: Having written the script so flawlessly with Maddow, John Huston gets his second gold star here as director. He was responsible for bringing together the various components, including all of the different people mentioned in the credits, in order to create one seamless product. The technical skills behind the effective use of the camera and the lighting should never be taken for granted.This is by no means the jungle of Tarzan and Jane. This is a jungle exclusively inhabited by flawed human beings who are doomed to self-destruction from the very start. Although the extremely bleak opening scenes are of the City of Cincinnati, I did not hear the name of this city mentioned even once during the film. Perhaps the director believed that it was unfair to single out one particular American city because the locale could have been any number of cities in the US at the time. I never once considered the many unsavory characters and shabby neighborhoods depicted here to be a reflection of any one city, but it's nevertheless an interesting bit of movie trivia to me. The fact that Doc asks the taxi driver to drive him to Cleveland is another hint at the film's locale. The fuzzy locale in this instance reminded me that Kazan never revealed that "On the Waterfront" was shot in Hudson County, NJ rather than in New York City, as many still believe. You can't see Manhattan across the Hudson from Manhattan, you know, but that is the subject for another (glowing) review.As to the superb acting in this film, who stands above the rest? My vote goes to Louis Calhern as Emmerich, the sleazy lawyer who is bankrupt not only financially but morally and spiritually as well. As disagreeable as this character is, Calhern's performance allows the viewer to experience up close the humiliation of a man who was once regarded as "respectable" by his community. His own adoring, bed-ridden wife, well played by Dorothy Tree, seems to be in total denial of the true extent of his corruption. To me, Calhern conveys so well a sense of ruin within a man once highly esteemed but suddenly reduced to the lowest depth of utter disgrace.The acting accolades could go on and on, including James Whitmore as the disabled getaway man who is simmering internally with violent rage, Jean Hagen as Doll, the devoted but very lonely girlfriend of Dix (Sterling Hayden), and Mark Lawrence as Cobby, the small-time criminal weasel who finds himself way over his head, possibly for the first time in his slimy life. No review should omit the work of Sterling Hayden, the "hick hooligan" with the exploding inner rage of a man who despises his fate, having been thrust into a hostile, urban world that he never wanted but in which he nevertheless must struggle to survive by means of criminal activity, the only way that he knows. Then there is Sam Jaffe as Doc, the sophisticated, highly educated mastermind of the caper who is very smart but not smart enough to have waited to execute his plan at a time when he is no longer a recently released, high profile prisoner. "Oh, the girls in Mexico!" he exclaims to his new partners in crime. Only because of the overall sense of doom and gloom do we sense early that he will never make it to Mexico and must instead settle for the fleeting, seductive 1950 jitterbug dance of a small town Ohio teenager in front of a roadside jukebox. "Oh, the girls of Westerville!" would be more like it for Doc. More sadness and failure follows for yet another doomed, pathetic inhabitant of the human jungle. And what about Marilyn Monroe, who literally lights up the screen, albeit briefly, in an otherwise dark, drab, and depressing world? Don't think for a moment that she doesn't provide the soothing relief that Huston deliberately sought for his audience, regardless of their gender. God bless Marilyn and watch over her forever.Other reviewers have mentioned the absence of music, especially during the caper itself. How else would we hear the early sounds of the police sirens in the distance that so ominously announce the approaching outcome that would impact so many lives, both the guilty and the innocent? The most important music of the film surges at the end when Dix, the urban misfit, finally comes home to Kentucky, surrounded by the beautiful horses of his dreams, in a serene, pastoral scene that deliberately contrasts the ugliness and alienation of the asphalt jungle that he so despised.

kapelusznik18 ****SPOILERS**** Just released from prison after serving a seven year stretch for breaking and entering, without permission, into a Midwest bank that he and his fellow gangsters, a word he hates to be called, knocked off criminal master-mind Erwin "Doc" Riedenschneider, Sam Jaffe,is back in business planning to rob just for starters a city jewelry store's safe of a cool $500,000.00 in hot ice. Being the brains of this operation "Doc" needs three more associates to help him pull this caper off a driver the hunchback feline lover Gus, James Whitmore, a top notch safe cracker caring family man Louis Ciavelli, Anthony Caruso, and cool and level headed hit-man the sick & degenerate gambler Dix Handley, played by the not so "Sterling" Sterling Hayden, to pull this all off. And not end up getting caught by the police with his pants pulled way down!The hitch to "Doc's" perfect crime in that he needs $50,000.00 in expense money to pull it all off and that's where mob lawyer or mouth-piece the "Right & and not so Honorable" shyster Alonzo D. Emmerich,Louis Calhern, comes in. Alonzo is not only to provide the 50 G' s but also with his mob connections fence the jewels for as much as half of their value! There's just one big problem in all this in that "Doc" and his fellow crooks have completely overlooked. Alonzo is flat broke, on women & horses, and doesn't have the cash- Much less a pot to pi** in- to get this "Perfect Crime" off the ground or on its feet. This becomes evident to "Doc" and the boys-Dix Gus & Ciavelli-after the job was pulled with Ciavelli in critical condition by being shot by a security guard during the break in. With a sweaty Alonzo planning to double-cross "Doc" and the boys with the help of fellow two timing hood Bob Brannom,Brad Dexter, his plans backfires with an into tuned on to what's going on Dix blasts Brannom into the world beyond with Dix getting hit from a stray bullet from Bannom's gun as well.***SPOILERS*** It doesn't take long for the police to find Bannom's body, that Alonzo dumped into the Ohio River, and trace him back to Alonzo's pad where he spent his last hour on earth before he was iced by Dix. A now panic stricken Alonzo using his personal squeeze the clueless in what's going on Algela Phinlay, Marilyn Monroe,whom he's also her sugar daddy or Uncle Don to serve as an alibi for him in being far far away from the murder scene. Angela soon breaks down-in her facing time behind bars-and spills the beans on Uncle Don who, in seeing the light or 2 to 5 years behind bars, then excuses himself and goes into his office and , before anyone can stop him, blows his brains out!As for "Doc" he takes it on the lamb with a $100.00 cab ride to Cleveland, to attend the Republican National Convention no less, but stops at a diner to cool his heels and play the a couple of songs on the jukebox and is caught by a couple of state troopers who were tipped off that he'd be there. With Gus arrested in a police road block it's only the badly wounded Dix who's now on the loose or lamb but with him on the point of bleeding to death he doesn't have that long to go anyway. With Dix ending up driven by his girlfriend "Doll" Conovan, Jean Hagen, to his home in Kentucky blue grass country where he lives just long enough to see both the horses as well as get a whiff of the sweet and pungent smell the horse manure that he used to pitch for a living that he loved so much.

JLRMovieReviews Sam Jaffe gets out of stir after having served his time and promptly has plans for another heist. But he needs the usual men of experience: the safe-cracker, the driver, etc. Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, James Whitmore, Jean Hagen, and Marilyn Monroe costar in this film noir, that has been hailed as one of the best of its kind. I saw it almost 20 years ago and for some reason I remember not liking it much. Normally any story of criminals on the run come to no good (end) and there's nothing to like about them and nothing (thank goodness) to relate to. Maybe that's why I didn't like it, and I was young… But seeing it today, I recognize all the elements that come together in this story of people gone bad. After all, it's the story of people that make any movie interesting and worth watching. Instead of just taking them at face value and shooting at each other, we are allowed into their private worlds. One man speaks of his wife and little girl. One man longs for his youth and his horse, wanting to go home again. Jean Hagen is a standout as she takes in Sterling Hayden and falls in love with him. She was Oscar-nominated for "Singin' in the Rain" but I think she's just as good if not better here. Marilyn Monroe is memorable in three short scenes and holds her own against real pros. And, Sam Jaffe and Sterling Hayden are good too, but perhaps the biggest impression on the viewers is Louis Calhern, who embodies and conveys his character's eccentricities so well. He's so subdued yet so intense and desperate. He always seems to be picture perfect – well dressed, in control, calm, when really it's bottled up. The whole production has the John Huston touch and it really packs a wallop. All the key parts are here to make this a must-see film noir. But in fact it's the story of people and choices and wrong turns that makes this transcend all other heist movies.