Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
Director: John Huston
Movie review
From Time Out London
If you want to know where the ‘The Usual Suspects’ or ‘Reservoir Dogs’ came from, look no further than this ‘heist-gone-wrong’ movie, John Huston’s greatest noir thriller, released in a fine new print. Adapted from WR Burnett’s pulp novel, it assembles a motley bunch of Midwestern hoods for a ‘perfect’ $1 million diamond robbery, including Sterling Hayden’s hulking hardman, the inimitable Sam Jaffe’s evil mastermind and Louis Calhern’s duplicitous lawyer (‘Some sweet girl,’ he croons wistfully at the angel on the couch, the iridescent young Marilyn in her first part). Exciting and tautly directed – the lengthy robbery scenes are exemplary – it’s moody to the dying frame, emphasised by Harold Rosson’s lighting of trash-filled back-alleys and half-lit clip joints and Miklós Rozsa’s haunting theme music. But, although the malaise and moral corruption it describes runs as socially deep as any of Fritz Lang’s noirs, it’s Huston’s irony and his attention to character, the villain’s thwarted professionalism and, albeit misguided, ambition, that deepens it, ensuring the pastoral ending’s pathetic force and emotional kick.Author: Wally Hammond
Time Out London Issue 1889: November 1-8 2006
Cast & crew
Director: John Huston
Producer: Arthur Hornblow Jr
Cast: Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Jean Hagen, Sam Jaffe, James Whitmore, John McIntire, Marilyn Monroe full cast
Genre(s): Film Noir
Rated: PG
Duration: 112 mins
UK Release: Nov 3 2006
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Time Out's 50 greatest monster movies
As Joe Johnston’s long-awaited reinvention of Universal’s howl-at-the-moon classic ‘The Wolfman’ hits cinemas, Time Out lists our 50 favourite cinematic stalkers, growlers, slashers and biters.
Mark Kermode: A life in film
Dave Calhoun chats to Britain's most outspoken film critic and pundit ahead of the release of his memoirs
Has Ricky Gervais gone all serious?
The trailer to 'Cemetery Junction' suggests that its writer-director is suppressing his funny bone.
The genius of Roman Polanski
Ahead of his new film, 'The Ghost', we must forget the media circus and remember the artist pleads Wally Hammond
Oscars 2010: The nominees
Tom Huddleston offers his acute analysis on the list of nominees for the 2010 Academy Awards
Rotterdam 2010: Geoff Andrew's report
Geoff Andrew finds rich leftfield pickings at the 2010 Rotterdam Film Festival
Can Tom Ford cut it as a director?
After ten years as creative head of Gucci, Tom Ford has directed his first movie. Nina Caplan meets him
Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade
So here it is… Ten years, thousands of movies and millions of dollars in international box office, and it all boils down to this.
2009: The year in film
We look back at the best movies of 2009 and pick out some of our favourite lists, features and interviews.











What do you think?
Post your review now