How The Asphalt Jun­gle changed the face of Amer­i­can noir

It’s 1950. A new decade has arrived and the direc­tors of film noir have realised some­thing col­lec­tive­ly: that good noir under­stands the city. It’s some­thing part­ly under­stood from the pre­vi­ous two decades of Hol­ly­wood, albeit heav­i­ly (but not unique­ly) tied to the studio.

Yet it’s a les­son that is reaf­firmed with gus­to by the film move­ments grow­ing out the rub­ble in post­war Europe too. From this, the genre comes into its own – and what bet­ter way to begin this new, ener­getic and inno­v­a­tive era of noir than with John Huston’s The Asphalt Jun­gle. It’s a film that not only changed the way cities looked and felt in Amer­i­can cin­e­ma but also put the heist at the heart of the genre for good, achiev­ing such cre­ative suc­cess that it became one of the modus operan­di for the genre.

Based on the nov­el by WR Bur­nett, the film fol­lows a par­tic­u­lar­ly grit­ty jew­ellery rob­bery involv­ing a recent­ly released crim­i­nal mas­ter­mind, Doc Rieden­schnei­der (Sam Jaffe), eager to pull the per­fect job so he can retire to Mex­i­co. He goes to small-time crook Cob­by (Marc Lawrence) for help with fund­ing the oper­a­tion and enlist­ing the men required to make it work. He’s put in touch with dodgy yet respect­ed lawyer Emmerich (Louis Cal­h­ern) who agrees to fund the enter­prise in spite of being broke due to keep­ing a young mis­tress, Angela (Mar­i­lyn Monroe).

Cob­by helps put a team togeth­er, includ­ing loy­al hard man Dix (Ster­ling Hay­den) – try­ing to get out of the city and blind to the love of Doll (Jean Hagen) – dri­ver Gus (James Whit­more) and safe expert Louis (Antho­ny Caru­so). But how per­fect real­ly is the job when so much is down to chance? And what will hap­pen when one of the inter­est­ed par­ties decides they want more than their cut?

If one thing real­ly emerges out of the pre­vi­ous decade’s worth of cin­e­ma, it’s a move to using more real urban loca­tions. Tak­ing clear influ­ence from the most suc­cess­ful film move­ment of the pre­vi­ous decade, Ital­ian Neo­re­al­ism, Hus­ton cre­ates some­thing new and refresh­ing. With films by the likes of Vit­to­rio De Sica and Rober­to Rosselli­ni, urban land­scapes moved on in screen terms from the neat and tidy Cal­i­for­nia back-lots and sets to some­thing more dilap­i­dat­ed and grit­ty, just like the build­ings left in ruins after the war. Hus­ton clear­ly took note of this and com­bined it with the styl­is­tic lean­ings of Hol­ly­wood cin­e­ma post-Cit­i­zen Kane; stark light and shad­ows build­ing com­po­si­tions using archi­tec­tur­al devices and quirks.

The effect of this com­bi­na­tion of con­trast­ing visu­al ideas is breath­tak­ing. The streets around Cincin­nati – at once indus­tri­al, derelict and eeri­ly emp­ty – become a pul­sat­ing, vile crea­ture whose dirt rubs off on every­one scram­bling around them, from the pet­ti­est of pet­ty crim­i­nals to the most seem­ing­ly respect­ed of pub­lic fig­ures and authority.

The script, adapt­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion between Hus­ton and Ben Mad­dow, goes to great pains to empha­sise this dirt­i­ness. ​“First thing I’m gonna do is take a bath in that creek and get that city dirt off me,” Hayden’s char­ac­ter sug­gests, deep in rem­i­nis­cence of the fam­i­ly farm­land he longs to buy back. It’s a per­son­al pin­ing that human­is­es him to the extent where his final moments in the film’s cli­max become some of clas­sic noir’s most heart­break­ing. Louis the safe man is of the same think­ing too. ​“If you want fresh air,” he quips ear­ly on, ​“don’t look for it in this town.” In Huston’s hands, liv­ing and work­ing in the city becomes a dirty busi­ness that can’t be cleaned off so easily.

What’s equal­ly strik­ing about The Asphalt Jun­gle is its sense of char­ac­ter. The range of its spo­ken roles and the sheer speed and pre­ci­sion through which they are effec­tive­ly ren­dered is remark­able to say the least. Though the film is cen­tred on the heist, Hus­ton knows that the real dra­ma will bloom in between the cracks of the mechan­ics sur­round­ing it. He knows that tech­ni­cal expo­si­tion can only get you so far.

The sheer vol­ume of heist films that pro­ceed after the film tells of just how effec­tive the sce­nario is though few pos­sess the same lev­el of under­stand­ing. Vir­tu­al­ly every char­ac­ter on screen – of which there are many – reacts dif­fer­ent­ly to the prob­lem of the heist and its even­tu­al col­lapse. It’s sur­pris­ing to find the whole spec­trum of human emo­tion and resilience present in just this one sin­gu­lar, seem­ing­ly straight­for­ward nar­ra­tive. It deals a high hand in human fallibility.

If Huston’s film exert­ed any influ­ence over the films that fol­lowed, it’s thanks to the dual­i­ty between its stark visu­al style and earnest appre­ci­a­tion of how char­ac­ter­ful dra­ma can spring from the most unlike­ly of places. I think of Dix’s heart­break­ing jour­ney home every time anoth­er heist film is viewed, won­der­ing if it’ll reach the same heights of dra­ma that Hay­den and Hagen achieve as they stum­ble across that last Ken­tucky field.

Dix’s desire to return to the farm high­lights a com­mon dri­ve in such films; to escape from places which feel more like a wild jun­gle than civil­i­sa­tion. There was only one way he’d ever get out of the city and wash the dirt of his crim­i­nal­i­ty off, the only route left open to those crooks down on their luck. It’s a dark real­i­sa­tion, one that would dri­ve film noir again and again there­after: the des­per­ate escape from a sce­nario where, even by chief of police’s own admis­sion, ​“The jun­gle wins.”