May Emmerich
(Dorothy Tree)
: “Oh, Lon, when I think of all those awful people you come in contact
with—downright criminals—I get scared.”
Alonzo D. Emmerich (Louis Calhern): “Oh, there's
nothing so different about them. After all, crime is only... a left-handed form
of human endeavor. “
The Asphalt Jungle
(1950)
is a dynamic, suspenseful combination of character study and tense
thriller. W.R. Burnett’s hard-boiled 1949 novel was snapped up for the movies
by producer Arthur Hornblow Jr. of
Witness for the Prosecution.
Oscar-winning
writer/director John Huston had always been a fan of
Burnett’s work, which included the novels
Little Caesar and
High
Sierra, also adapted into classic suspense films. Huston joined forces with
screenwriter Ben Maddow (
The Secret of Santa Vittoria; The Chairman),
and the result was one of the best caper thrillers ever made. The intense score
by the great Miklos Rosza (Alfred Hitchcock’s
Spellbound; The Lost Weekend;
The Power) accompanies the film with a sense of urgency that keeps you
riveted. The title theme always makes me think of bullfighting somehow, as if
Huston himself is daring the film’s characters to get away with their
meticulously-planned jewel heist. In any case, you know you’re in good hands
when you have the writer/director of the classic 1941 version of
The Maltese
Falcon on your team!
 |
Watch your back in this town, Dix, or the "Happiness Boys"
will have you zigging when you oughta be zagging! |
 |
Gus sure knows how to keep his customers safe!
|
 |
Fred Flintstone in a lineup?!
How will he ever explain this to Wilma? |
The first
character we meet among
The Asphalt Jungle’s characters is rugged Dix
Handley (
Sterling Hayden from
Dr. Strangelove; Johnny Guitar; The
Godfather), slipping in out of columns in the early dawn, walking stealthily
yet with a sense of purpose. Harold Rosson’s cinematography lends the early
dawn an Ansel Adams
look.
At
six-foot-five with a booming voice, Dix is easy to hear and see, so it’s no
surprise that with the police cracking town on suspicious characters, Dix gets
hauled in for questioning for a series of stick-ups. Indeed, Dix barely has
time to grab some chow at The Pilgrim House, where his friend Gus Minissi
(James
Whitmore of
Battleground; THEM!; Give ’em Hell, Harry!)
serves up good old “American Food—Home Cooking,” like it says right on the brick
signage! Chain restaurants? We don’t need no stinkin’ chain restaurants! Gus
happens to be a hunchback, but that doesn’t stop him from being kind to folks
who need food and money, including the ever-broke Dix. Gus is also kind to
stray cats and stronger than he looks—disaster to the jerk who threatens cats in
Gus’ place!
Dix is always trying to earn money, either from borrowing money from Cobby (Marc
Lawrence from
Key Largo; Marathon Man; Foul Play),
an alcoholic bookie who sweats like a human waterfall,
or getting it at gunpoint. But his gambling and stick-ups just aren’t doing the
trick. As a result, Dix always seems to be borrowing money from Gus:
Dix: “I just can’t be in Cobby’s debt and keep my self-respect.”
Gus: “I guess it’s all right to owe me, huh?”
Dix (as sheepish as a lug like Dix can ever be): “I guess.”
Gus:
“Yeah. It’s just my luck.”
 |
Sam Drucker's gonna need a shady rest
after the cops sweat him! |
Still, dig the company Dix keeps in
the lineup scene! That first
doleful-looking guy is Henry Corden, prolific character actor and voiceover
artist, who took over the voiceover role of Fred Flintstone after the original
Fred, actor Alan Reed, died in 1977; Corden continued in the role until his
death in 2005. While you’re at it, look at the way Dix glowers at the Night
Clerk as he stands in the lineup, giving that poor nervous witness the Hairy
Eyeball. That clerk is played by Frank Cady from Alfred Hitchcock’s
Rear Window and TV’s
Petticoat Junction. No wonder the Night Clerk
can’t bring himself to I.D. Dix to the hardnosed Lt. Ditrich (Barry Kelley from
The Manchurian Candidate; Elmer Gantry;The Love Bug). Frank’s not
in Hooterville anymore!
The setting in
The Asphalt Jungle is identified only as an unnamed
Midwestern city. With all that crime, maybe that burg is ashamed to identify
itself! Police Commissioner Hardy (John McIntire from
Psycho; Winchester
’73; Scene of the Crime) is fed up with lazy, shifty incompetents like
Ditrich who whine that they don’t know what to do. Hardy reads Ditrich the riot
act: “Lock up the witness! Scare him worse! It’s your
job, knowing
what to do!” Hardy’s even more fed up with the gambling rackets, as Ditrich
whines, “I close them down, but they only open up again.” Hardy is
unsympathetic: “You don’t close them hard enough! Rip out the phones, smash up
the furniture!” On top of that, the notorious jewel thief Erwin “Doc”
Riedenschneider (Sam Jaffe from
Gunga Din; Ben-Hur; TV’s
Ben
Casey) has just been released from prison, looking all spiffy and dignified
in his Sunday best as he ditches Doc’s tail with the greatest of ease. Ditrich
is behind the eight-ball, so Hardy gives him three options: “I can reduce you
to the rank of Patrolman and send you down to Five Corners; I can bring you up
for departmental trial on charges of incompetence; or I can give you one more
chance to make good on your responsibilities. I think that’ll be the greatest
punishment of all.”
 |
| Would YOU dare to say "No!" to a guy like Dix Handley? |
 |
| Doc loves, he loves, he loves his calendar girls! |
Now that Doc’s a free man again, maybe he’ll spend his new-found freedom hanging
out with the neighborhood kids, teaching them from his experiences that crime
doesn’t pay. Yeah, and Christmas comes in July! But Doc is interested in
spending quality time with the girls—you see, Doc prefers pretty girls of a
tender age, dirty old man that he is! With no young babes to drool over, Doc gets down to business, bringing Doc and Cobby
to the posh pad of the eminent, high-powered lawyer Alonso D. Emmerich (Louis
Calhern from
Duck Soup; Annie, Get Your Gun; Alfred Hitchcock’s
Notorious).
Doc’s caper involves a jewel heist that, if it succeeds, would
net our perpetrators more than enough money to live on for the rest of their
lives! Their target: Belletier’s, one of the Midwest’s biggest, most fabulous
jewelry stores. Doc makes the pitch in his calm, assured way: “Everything is
here, from the observed routine of the personnel to the alarm system, the types
of locks on the doors, the aging condition of the main safe, and so forth. Take
my word for it, Mr. Emmerich, this is a ripe plum ready to fall.” But can they
be sure this ripe plum won’t slip through their fingers, leaving a mess behind?
Our thieves do their best to protect themselves from potential peril, with the
following personnel:
*Gus
as the getaway driver. His take would be $10,000.
*Louis Ciavelli (Anthony Caruso from Across the Pacific; My Favorite Brunette; His Kind of Woman). Louis is a professional safecracker, or
“boxman,” so he’ll be earning the most money: $25,000. He needs it, too,
for his family’s sick baby; the poor little tyke sounds like he has whooping
cough!
*And
last but not least, the gang decides on their “hooligan” for the tough stuff:
our man Dix Handley, getting the gig for $15,000! That would be
more than enough for Dix to get back to his family farm in Kentucky and start
fresh, if he stays focused and all goes well….
 |
| Doll Conovan comes to Dix in fake eyelashes and real tears! |
All that Doc and his
crew would need to put the plan in motion is $50,000, with way more to come if
the robbery succeeds, of course. That sure sounds more lucrative than the
dollar and a dream the lottery commercials always ballyhoo! Our thieves could
have quite a haul—in a perfect world, anyway. (If it were me, I’d be happy with
just the fifty-grand!) They’ve got to be careful, though; the “Happiness Boys”
on the police force are giving folks like our thieves the push, leaving bookies,
“dime-a-dance” dames, and other folks with livelihoods of questionable repute in
jeopardy. It’s hard out there for a crook lately, as well as the people who
depend on them to make ends meet. And you thought New York City’s Mayor
Bloomberg was tough on crime with his soda wars!
 |
| Oh, that Emmerich—what a heel! |
 |
"Uncle Lon"s kept-tootsie Angela
is "some sweet kid"! |
 |
| Uh-oh! Is it curtains for Doc, Dix, and Louis? |
 |
| And then he kissed meeee! It's about time Doll got a smooch in this movie! |
 |
| Fellas, please tell me that's just the Mister Softee truck I'm hearing, not alarms! |
 |
| Diamonds are a guy's best friend! Wish Angela were here to sing a few bars! |
 |
| They're in the money—or are they? Watch the whole movie for the suspenseful conclusion! |
 |
Good morning, and welcome to Breakfast with Doll and Dix!
Today, Doll whips up her special Corncracker pancakes, and Dix recommends his favorite colts! |
But can Emmerich be
trusted? After the conspirators leave, Emmerich admits to his right-hand man,
private detective Bob Brannon (Brad Dexter of
The Magnificent Seven; Violent
Saturday; Von Ryan’s Express), that his extravagant lifestyle has left him
broke, and he’s trying to keep it from his sickly, unsuspecting wife May
(Dorothy Tree, veteran actress and speech coach, with films including
The
Men; Crime Doctor; Knute Rockne, All-American) and his gorgeous young
mistress Angela Phinlay (Marilyn Monroe in one of the early roles that put her
on the map, including
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; All About Eve; and
Niagara). Sheesh, what’s the world coming to when you can’t even trust a
rich guy with a caper? Emmerich agrees to cough up the dough, then suggests
that he help the gang out by taking charge of safekeeping of the loot himself,
instead of divvying it among several “fences” like most robbers do. Aw, isn’t
Emmerich thoughtful? Hmm, what’s that smell—a king-size rat, perhaps?
Doll has
been working at this clip joint, The Club Regal. Wouldn’t you know Hardy has
closed it down, and on pay night, to boot? Poor Doll; she tries to be brave
when she comes to Dix’s door, with nowhere else to turn, but she dissolves in
tears, her pretty face smudged with make-up and wet false eyelashes when she
admits her dilemma. She’s in love with Dix, even if having horses on the brain
24/7 has Dix virtually blinded. Dix isn’t so great at winning money, but he
loves horses, and he’s OK with letting Doll stay around for a while, even as
Dix gruffly adds, “But don’t get no ideas, Doll.” That said, I was touched that
Dix let Doll stay in her time of need, and how she made breakfast for him. In
Dix’s tunnel-visioned way, he even seemed to appreciate it, even asking for her
forwarding address. When Dix waxes rhapsodic about the colt he loved back in
Kentucky, it just seems to make Doll love Dix even more, and it made me wish
those crazy kids could’ve somehow carved out a future together. Despite his
unfortunate habit of getting money by sticking people up, Dix isn’t really a bad
guy; he’s just
really,
really focused on his dream of getting his
Kentucky horse farm back. The heist could solve his problems, and maybe Doll’s
problems, too.
The great cast of character actors is unforgettable, and the robbery itself is
11 minutes of nail-biting suspense.
The Asphalt Jungle isn’t some slick, stylish
entertainment that melts out of your brain like cotton candy by the end (not
that there’s anything wrong with that!). Suspenseful though it is, it also made
me feel for these characters long after I watched it, especially poor hard-luck
Doll Conovan, played so movingly by Jean Hagen of
Adam’s Rib; Sunrise
at Campobello; and
Singin’ in the Rain, for which Hagen was nominated
for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar of 1952 for her hilarious performance as
obnoxious, tone-deaf silent film star Lina Lamont. Wow, did Hagen have range,
or what?
Dr. Drew Casper, who holds the Alfred and Alma Hitchcock Chair at the USC School
of Film & Television in Los Angeles, points out on
The Asphalt Jungle’s
DVD/Blu-Ray commentary track how unusual it was to have Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
producing this stark crime thriller: “What’s a movie like this doing at MGM, or
what’s MGM doing with a movie like this?” Indeed, where were the glamorous
musicals and their splashy production numbers, and the wholesome entertainment
of the Andy Hardy movies and such? Well, the post-war days of MGM in 1950 had
just begun, and Toto, we sure weren’t in Kansas anymore! Broadway
producer/playwright Dore Schary brought his biopic play
Sunrise at Campobello
to both stage and screen,
including Oscar nominations. Schary
inevitably climbed the ladder at MGM, becoming its Chief of Production in 1948.
As post-war America rapidly became a very different animal, Schary and Louis B.
Mayer were in synch—or so they thought. It turned out Mayer was looking toward
mirroring the past, while Schary was looking toward how people lived
now,
in this brave new world where things weren’t always pretty, happy and peppy.
During Schary’s MGM reign, social consciousness was encouraged in both the “A”
film
and the so-called “B” film units, so a novel based on the likes of
W.R. Burnett seemed to be just what Hollywood needed to shake up the 1950s.
On the DVD/BluRay commentary track, Whitmore actually quotes Emmerich’s famous
line: “Crime is just a left-handed form of human endeavor.” Whitmore adds, “I
always liked that, and that’s exactly what John got on the screen, that they
were just
people. Hayden and ‘Jeannie’ Hagen , and Sam Jaffe and I became
lifelong friends after
The Asphalt Jungle wrapped.”
The Asphalt
Jungle’s movie ads boasted: “80 minutes of continuous excitement’,”
according to Bennett Cerf of the
Saturday Review of Literature. But
The Asphalt Jungle’s running time is 112 minutes! Maybe they
didn’t factor in the Coming Attractions?
I feel for these characters, especially Louis and his wife and their sick baby;
Gus, with his kindness to cats; and especially poor sweet hard-luck Doll , who
breaks my heart and who’s stuck on Dix, even if he’s slow to pick up on her
feelings for him. I love the way Dix gets so much more talkative when he starts
talking with Doll about horses, and how Doll tries to understand him. You know
how in
Some Like It Hot, hard-luck Marilyn Monroe says, “Why do I always
get the fuzzy end of the lollipop?” Well, in
The Asphalt Jungle,
Marilyn Monroe’s character Angela is the one who’s got it made—for now, at
least—while poor Doll is the one who’s getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop,
and worse! Still, Dix is kind to Doll in his blinkered way; he gives her money
when she’s broke, and near the end of the film, it seems Dix is slowly but
surely getting it through his horse-happy head that Doll loves Dix, and the
feeling seems to be mutual—but is it already too late for these poor poignant
losers?
The one thing John Huston always thought was most important in staying alive
(and it must have worked, since he had a great life) was his interest in life,
and how to enjoy it and appreciate it. No doubt that’s why John Huston and
Sterling Hayden worked so well together. Hayden’s one lifelong regret was that
he’d cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) for what
he considered “ratting.” Ironically, rugged tough-guy Hayden began his movie
career as a Paramount heartthrob! My dear late mom was a big Hayden fan, and
she’d filled me in on Hayden’s career, including his four-year marriage to the
beautiful and talented Madeleine
Carroll (The Prisoner of Zenda and
My
Favorite Blonde, as well as Alfred Hitchcock’s
The 39 Steps and
Secret Agent), and his love of sailing and writing (he’d written two
best-selling books, his 1963 autobiography
Wanderer, and his 1976 novel,
Voyage). Indeed, Hayden was up for the role of Quint in the 1975 film
version of the terror classic
Jaws; alas, he couldn’t take the part due
to tax problems.
(Would that have been cool, or what?)
The Asphalt
Jungle had legs, spawning three remakes:
The Badlanders (1958),
Cairo (1963); and
Cool Breeze (1972), with an all-African American
cast. There was even an
Asphalt Jungle TV series starring William Smith and
Jack Warden, with theme music by Duke Ellington, though the show only lasted one
season.
To
slightly paraphrase a line from a later quote in Marilyn Monroe’s career, it
looks like “Uncle Lon’s” luscious kept-tootsie Angela Phinlay (Marilyn in her
big break!) will be getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop once the caper
unravels. Come to think of it, just about everyone in
The Asphalt Jungle
seems to get the fuzzy end of the lollipop eventually. With the agita
these thieves have to put up with, maybe working for a living wouldn’t be so bad
after all. Considering “Crime Doesn’t Pay” was still pretty much the norm in
movies back in 1950, moviegoers might not be guaranteed a happy ending—but at
least Dix finally gets a colt at last. And let this be a warning to everyone
eager for easy money:
Beware of dapper little
men eager for quick money and very young ladies! And remember what "Uncle Lon" always says above: "After all, crime is only a left-handed form of human endeavor." (No offense meant to the southpaws in the audience!)
If you love The Dark Pages, it's available in two ways!
Online:
http://www.allthatnoir.com/newsletter.htm
http://hqofk.wordpress.com/2013/06/24/first-look-dark-pages-latest-issue-3/
And in print just like
Mama and Papa used to make:
The Dark Pages
P.O. Box 2716
Chicago, Illinois
60609-2716
:
