The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

Erwin "Doc" Riedenschneider (Sam Jaffe), a recently-out-of-prison mastermind has been thinking about a heist which should be a cinch to pull.

He simply needs to get some funding, a team of experts, and the muscle to pull it.

It is a small word of crime outside of prison as everyone borrows money from the next guy (and he from the next, and so on,) in order to either pay off a debt or provide funding for the job.

The same money changes hands and goes around in a circle from borrowers to lenders then to the borrowers again, but now as payment.

Not only that, but all the guys involved in the transaction end up forming part of the team: Starting with the brain; to the big, dumb guy (Sterling Hayden) who will provide the muscle; to his hunchback buddy (Gus Minissi) who owns a diner, lends him part of money and hides evidence for him; to the safecracker (Louie Ciavelli) the rest of the money is borrowed from; to the bookie (Marc Lawrence) the money is owed to; to the criminal kingpin (Louis Calhern) who has managed to keep his reputation clean but whose expensive lifestyle has caught up with him and is now broke, and has to rely on a secret loan from the bookie in order to finance the caper.

Confronted with such an incestuous criminal group, it is no wonder that the cops will have their work cut out for them (these folks are the definition of 'the usual suspects') and that the whole enterprise will be doomed from conception.

This is a classic Noir, after all.

The treatment is somewhat old-fashioned, with a post-Code emphasis on crime not paying. We even get a speech on how not all cops are corrupt even after seeing the disastrous effects of police corruption.

Yeah, all these guys might deserve what they get, but it is their families and loved ones who get to suffer.

A widow (Teresa Celli) and her orphans are the hardest hit.

The stripper/hooker (Jean Hagen) has a rough life ahead, but she would no matter what happens or does not.

The broke attorney’s bedridden widow (Dorothy Tree) is in some trouble as well, but seeing as how she owes her previous life of luxury to profiting from crime, it feels like some kind of justice.

The moll (Marilyn Monroe) is young enough and good looking enough that she will probably be fine. She is not even in any sort of peril with the law.

Expertly directed by John Huston, and with an early, break-out role for Monroe.