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Jaffe's team includes safecracker (and family man) Anthony Caruso, intense getaway car driver James Whitmore, and "hooligan" Sterling Hayden. The cast is completed by Hayden's sort-of girlfriend Jean Hagen, Lawrence's cop on the take Barry Kelley, and self-righteous police commissioner John McIntire.
How others will see it. Directed by none other than John Huston, fresh from Treasure of the Sierra Madres, The Asphalt Jungle is a highly watchable crime drama that has obviously influenced many films since, such as Stanley Kubrick's breakthrough film, The Killing, which also featured our deadpan cool tough guy anti-hero, Sterling Hayden.
Guys generally love this type of movie, where they can unconsciously cheer for the crooks to get away with it, and yet feel sanctimonious as they all get what's coming to them, one by one. Feel free to make a checklist of all the guys who break the law, then cross them out as they get theirs. When the credits roll, there won't be any names left, at least not while the Production Code rules Hollywood.
How I felt about it. The best character here belongs to Louis Calhern. He is a wastrel who needs a way out of debt, and is now so desperate that becoming associated with a heist isn't good enough. He has to double cross the hoods by stealing their loot, even if this means he might get shot. But despite his predicament, he puts on a good front, acting like he hasn't a care in the world.
Young Marilyn Monroe is also memorable, in her big scene where she admits Calhern's alibi is false. But the big winner is Sterling Hayden, whose code of ethics means slugging a cop or shooting a double crosser is okay, but gambling debts are to be paid in full, and he can't turn away Hagen if she comes to his door with nowhere else to stay.
Hayden's big dream is return to the horse ranch his parents once owned, and buy it. But he has been branded a hooligan, whatever that is, and he's only good for beating up those who are in the way. Still, one respects him more than Lawrence, who is a complete weasel, or even Jaffe, whose lust for women a third his age would today be considered a greater crime than breaking and entering.
It's all a bit exaggerated, of course. Hayden's flesh wound gets worse just in time for him to prove the maxim Crime Doesn't Pay, and perhaps Jaffe would wait until he's in another state before ogling babes at the juke joint. But it's all enjoyable nonetheless.