Skip to main content

Movie: Asphalt Jungle

Heist film by John Huston. Sam Jaffe, freshly out of prison, plans a bank robbery.  Goon is Sterling Hayden.  There is also a lock expert and a driver.  It all works, except it doesn't.  A gun goes off striking the lock breaker.  The man who will buy the diamonds is actually broke. Sterling Hayden gets shot in a confrontation over the payoff. Jaffe gets arrested after he stays to watch a teen-age girl dance one more dance at a cafe. (He's portrayed as a pervert.)

Everything about the movie was excellent except the performance of Sterling Hayden. He's just wooden. Surly all the time, sneering all the time--why Jean Hagen, his moll, loves him is beyond any rational explanation.  Too bad, because with a subtle performance this would be one of the all time great noir films.  As it is, it's still quite good.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin . . . finished

 Follows Sadie and Sam (Mazer) from childhood to mid-thirties when both are feeling old and a bit out of it in the gaming world.  Characters are well-rounded, develop throughout the novel in interesting way.  Plot is involved but sensible.  Not a single, "Oh, come on!" moment.  The book could have been faster paced. Odd, since the main topic is video games which are not for their speed of engagement and Gabrielle Zevin clearly knows her video games. Recommended by Michael Connelly in an interview.  He also has Bosch pick up the book in his novel, Resurrection Walk, as Bosch tails a possible witness to a crime as she moves through a bookstore. Sadie and Sam do not get together at the end, which is good.   Marx killed by homophobic nutcase who really wants to kill Sam, but Sam isn't there. Marx is father of Sadie's child. 
Post a Comment
Read more

The Franchise Affair, Josephine Tey--opening pages

Blair, a lawyer in Milford, gets a strange call.  His practice is wills and similar--nothing criminal.  A woman tells him that Scotland Yard is accusing her of abduction and implores him to come out to help her, even if later on he passes the case to someone else.  The woman says she has called him because he is "her type," meaning respectable and conservative.  He agrees.
Post a Comment
Read more