"One way or another, we all work for our vice."

The perfect crime is a topic many stories and movies have dealt with. The perfect crime doesn’t necessarily have to be perfect at all. Things can go wrong with the plan, but as long as the criminals get away with their crime then the crime can be considered perfect. Robbery is a popular subject in fiction because it allows for the perfect crime, but also allows the author to create a moral story if the crime happens to go wrong.

The Asphalt Jungle (1950) is one of those movies that deals with the perfect crime. Like Ocean’s Eleven and Seven Thieves (1960), this movie brings a group of the top criminals in the area together for a job.

Since this is a pretty typical story, with the brains of the operation bringing various personalities together in hopes of scoring a big load, there is not much to describe about the movie. Other than the brains of the operation has just come out of prison, wants one last big job before retirement and uses his connections to find someone who will finance the operation. With finances in place the brains brings together the people he needs for his plan. The robbery is then executed. In The Asphalt Jungle the criminals get the money. It isn’t until they have the movie that things go wrong. The noise from the nitroglycerin blast to open the safe is so loud that alarms from other buildings in the area start ringing, bringing the cops. One of the officers wounds one of the robbers. With the criminal in custody it is only a matter of time before the bunch is found and brought to justice.

John Huston brought this story to the screen. The Asphalt Jungle was originally a novel written by W.R. Burnett. Burnett was one of Huston’s favorite writers. The two first worked together on High Sierra (1941), when Huston was just a screenwriter.

The movie was nominated for four Academy Awards, including best picture. It is still a good watch, but there have been similar movies that have come out in the past 50 years, so the subject matter doesn’t seem so fresh today.

The movie is best remembered today as being Marilyn Monroe’s first big break into Hollywood. She had been an actress for over a year and had appeared in a couple movies before The Asphalt Jungle. But this movie would establish her in Hollywood.

She plays the “niece” of the lawyer who puts up the financing for the crime job. She does not appear on screen for very long, but she does make an impression. When the police come to the lawyer’s house they find him with his mistress Monroe. Marilyn is in fits over what is going to happen to her “uncle.”

This role would lead to similar roles throughout her career as the elegant, dumb blonde. Of course this was the case with most actors who made it as stars in Hollywood. Boris Karloff was always typecast in horror roles, as was Bela Lugosi. Humphrey Bogart in gangster roles and John Wayne in westerns.

It should be noted that John Huston directed Marilyn Monroe in what many consider her first major role, in The Asphalt Jungle, and in her final role, as Roslyln in The Misfits (1961). Both came a long way between the two pictures.