John Huston directed this film two years after making KEY LARGO (1948) and one year before THE African QUEEN (1951). The film is chiefly of importance for the sizzling performance of the young Marilyn Munroe in a supporting role as the mistress of Louis Calhern, whom she kisses in the film, despite his prickly moustache, with a good deal of ardour, despite his being zillions of years older than her and certainly being one of the least kissable screen actors of his day. Munroe's affectation of jaw-dropping naiveté and simple-mindedness is shockingly convincing, as all her dumb blonde characteristics always were in films. She really stands out in this film despite still being an unknown actress. The script of this film is brilliant, and the dialogue is crisp and effective at all times. Everyone in the film except for the Police Commissioner (a lone, honest figure in a sea of sewage), and a pathetic girl who is in love with Sterling Hayden without his noticing, is amoral, corrupt, vicious, avaricious, violent, unfeeling, dishonest, double-crossing or triple-crossing, selfish, egotistical, greedy, and despicable in every way. One wonders why anyone wants to make films about such people, but then it is done every day to great popular acclaim, which says a lot about humanity. The film is, therefore, truly about a jungle. All the beasts of prey are on the loose and eating each other. Huston was always a talented director, and he makes this film compelling and fascinating to watch, a bit like a visit to the Reptile House in the zoo. Huston was a sadistic personality who liked to watch people suffer, and here he has an entire cast to torment, so he must have been very happy. (At least no one cuts off her nipples with scissors, as Julie Harris did in REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE (1967), which is a relief, and also no horses are tortured as in THE MISFITS (1961), and the masochistic Montgomery Clift was not in the cast for Huston to hospitalize and then visit afterwards with flowers as he liked to do, or a masochistic James Agee to drive to a premature heart attack.) Sam Jaffe does an excellent job of playing a brilliant criminal who has just been released after seven years 'behind the walls' in prison, and immediately plans an ingenious heist. He dresses impeccably and affects the airs of a gentleman. His performance is truly remarkable, especially the scene where he loses all track of time because he becomes entranced with a young girl doing the jitterbug to a juke box, with tragic results. The film is littered with rich irony, much of it very subtle indeed. In a way, it is an intellectual work, though unquestionably a study in evil which ends up apologizing for much of it. As Louis Calhern says in a sober reflective moment: 'Crime is really just a left-handed form of human endeavour.' I fear this moral relativism is at the basis of this entire film, and seems to have been accepted by writers, producer, and director. In other words, this film is rotten at its heart.
Review of The Asphalt Jungle
