The Asphalt Jungle

The Asphalt Jungle came out of MGM (yeah, MGM. Not exactly a wonderful musical as we shall see) in 1950, the classic era of film noir in the US. But Jungle might also be pegged with a label that someone walking down the street would now recognize: it’s a heist film. The story comes from the wonderful author of crime, W. R. Burnett, and his 1949 novel. Burnett came up the hard way, working as a night clerk in a hotel while learning writing, exposing him to all sorts of characters and situations, seedy or not. His first novel, Little Caesar, established the gangster story in America, followed quickly by the film adaptation, starring Edward G. Robinson. Burnett made a habit of writing about a novel per year and rapidly turning around and selling the rights to Hollywood, sometimes writing the screenplay himself. He came up with the novels or screenplays that formed the basis for such classics as Scarface, with Paul Muni, memorably remade with Pacino, High Sierra, with Bogart and Ida Lupino, King Of The Underworld, The Dark Command, This Gun For Hire, which made diminutive Alan Ladd a star, The Great Escape, and Ice Station Zebra. Burnett’s novels were unusual, not for the protagonists’ helpless fall into crime in the big dirty city, but a contrast with their desire for a simpler, rural, straight life, one which they seldom achieve. As we shall see in Jungle. 

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