The Asphalt Jungle

A German doctor out of prison assembles a crew for a jewel robbery: a boxman, a driver, a hooligan and a lawyer to finance it. The crime goes off, and then everything comes apart one piece at a time. The heist film as we know it starts here, and later work including the 1955 French film Rififi took the structure directly. This is Marilyn Monroe's first role that anyone noticed. Huston had wanted Lola Albright and was unimpressed by Monroe at her screen test, then changed his mind watching her leave the room, later describing her as one of the few actresses who could make an entrance by leaving. The Production Code Administration objected both to the detailed depiction of the robbery and to the corrupt lawyer's suicide. Neither the studio nor the censors interfered much in the end, and the suicide was simply rewritten to be less explicit. It took four Academy Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, and entered the National Film Registry in 2008. Who it is for: anyone who wants to see where noir and the heist genre begin. Who it is not for: viewers expecting fast action. The film is far more interested in the aftermath than the robbery.