Product description

The Asphalt Jungle [1950] [DVD]

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Average customer rating: 4.5

Binding : DVD
EAN : 7321900504836
Label : Warner Home Video
Manufacturer : Warner Home Video
Publisher : Warner Home Video
Release date : 2006-06-01
Title : The Asphalt Jungle [1950] [DVD]
Actor : Array
Audience rating : Parental Guidance
Format : Array
Languages : Array
Number of items : 1
Original release date : 1950-01-01
Region code : 2
Running time : 112
Studio : Warner Home Video
Theatrical releaseDate : 1950

Customer reviews

review by: date: 2009-03-19 rating:

One of the best films noirs
I agree with other reviewers, a very good film in terms of its plot, varied scenes of urban life, film noir lighting, plausibly downbeat ending and the music. I also agree with Trevor Willsmer that it's perhaps 10 or 15 mins too long - perhaps not edited quite snappily enough. And the robbery - despite Sam Jaffe making big claims for its value, the actual execution lacks a little ingenuity and even tension, so it doesn't really match the $ value in cinematic terms, I thought. br / br /From the very first creepy, atmosperic scenes, Sterling Hayden is very good - physically menacing and quite sinister, but he somehow manages also to make his character surprisingly sympathetic in the closing stages. Loyalty to ones friends is always appealing. It doesn't come as a huge surprise that SH was a man with other interests and considerable talents outside the Hollywood bubble (see his wikipedia entry)

review by: date: 2009-02-01 rating:

Never trust a policeman. Just when you think they are OK they go legit
I don't know how I have missed this film for so long. It is a great film for 1950 and directed by John Huston. I was expecting a voice over but it doesn't and the music isn't intrusive. br / br /It is as tough as any Chandler or Hammett story with the Doc coming out of prison with a plan for a new robbery. br / br /We get to meet all the characters and they are brought to life from the crooked lawyer who is going to finance it to his mistress Marilyn Monroe. br / br /They interview the gang members and bring them together. We are told it is a jewellery robbery. It is meticulously planned and executed. br / br /Things go wrong and we are left with the chase. All the characters are well drawn and you have all the usually sympathy or antipathy as required. br /There are bent coppers and police chiefs cracking down on crime. Great in black and white very atmospheric of diners and late nights in shady joints with girls with hearts of gold who love the baddies and help them out. br / br /Much imitated but this is the best and the original and still stands up well after all these years. When I used to go to the pictures as a kid these films gave me my impressions of America and even though seedy I was amazed how advanced the US was to Britain int he fifties. It took us a long time to get the things they had. A real period piece and a must watch. br / br /Great acting by all concerned and a great story

review by: date: 2008-11-22 rating:

A realistic film
"The Asphalt Jungle" is one of the few Hollywood films to follow the Russian tradition of picture-making; for the film does not include actors who are "stars" in the accepted sense of the word, but people who have been encouraged to "sink" their characters fully into the roles they are playing. Even Marilyn Monroe - in one of her first film parts - is not listed in the opening credit titles. br /The movie captures perfectly the weaknesses of human nature that comes from greed the wish to have more than one`s "fair share" . The contrast in the characters is notable: for example, the coolness of the German "Doctor" and the nervousness of the bookmaker. br /The black white photography is gritty helps create the sombre atmosphere of the film. The use of music too, is interesting: only in the first last scenes of the picture is there any "soundtrack" background music. Otherwise the music emanates from "natural" sources i.e. radio, jukebox etc., altogether an absorbing film, well worth seeing; a classic of its kind. br /John Harman.

review by: brendoclarke date: 2008-03-01 rating:

Great crime flick
The problem with todays crime movies is that so many of them talk the talk but dont walk the walk. br /John Houston's 1953 heist movie puts them all to shame, simply because it understands what makes career criminals tick, and it manages to combine street style with character substance. On one level there is the plan, the operation and the betrayal that inevitably follows. But beneath this we are given glimpses into the domestic lives, impossible dreams and personality flaws of the heavy, the safecracker, the mastermind, the getaway driver, the financier- character types transformed into real flesh and blood. Brilliant. br /

review by: date: 2008-02-19 rating:

Timing Is All...
...in this film about a jewel heist in the Mid West of the USA. Sterling Hayden's tough guy role would have been the lead then, though Marilyn Monroe is now billed ahead of him, even though it was one of her earlier parts and a smallish one at that, as the "teen" (? she looks about 20) girlfriend of crooked attorney Mr. Emrich. In fact, young girls seem to be the order of the day as elderly master criminal Sam Jaffe gets caught in the end because he wastes a few minutes watching the semi-erotic dancing of an even younger teenage girl in a diner. Well, so I'm not complaining! br / br /As the Amazon synopsis indicates, Rank made a lavish and watchable later (though still black and white-- a bad mistake with such an exotic location) attempt to all but copy the plot in the 1963 film Cairo (with George Sanders as the mastermind, also eventually caught while watching a great bellydance somewhere by the Nile). Even the injured gunman antihero copies Hayden's doomed last journey to his home farm, though in the film Cairo the farm is somewhere south of the city, by the Nile, Cairo the film having been filmed on location. br / br /Still well worth watching is this heist classic, which never bores.

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