Noir Theater: The Asphalt Jungle

I’m going to be producing several noir focus articles in the next few weeks, in order to illustrate the societal, political and historical relevance of the greatest era of American cinema.

I saw The Asphalt Jungle in high school, enticed into it by the allure of being Marilyn Monroe’s first major role. The film is one of the last of the great noir pieces and in many way reflects an old America.

A stand out line that still gets me laughing is the criminal mastermind Doc reflecting on how he would like to move down to Mexico City after his planned heist because of its “clear skies.” The love affair between the two main characters is realistically brutal and nuanced, and the darkness of Marilyn Monroe is more fitting to her tragic life than her upbeat comedies.

The film’s aesthetic edginess is an untainted spill over from the dark period of the 1930s and the 1940s, in which the world was faced with economic depression, holocausts, total war and the invention of nuclear weapons. Within a few years of its release, popular taste had shifted to the commercial optimism of I Love Lucy and Some Like It Hot, more appropriate to the unusual prosperity of the 1950s.

Next: The Stranger