By David in TN
Friday, May 31, 2019 at 4:29:00 P.M. EDT
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at 12:45 a.m. ET (and 10 a.m. ET) is John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle (1950). There’s a great cast with Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Jean Hagen, James Whitmore, Sam Jaffe, John McIntire, Marc Lawrence, Barry Kelley, Anthony Caruso and Marilyn Monroe.
The Asphalt Jungle is the prototype heist film.
Film Noir Guide: “When an aging criminal genius (Jaffe) is released from prison, he goes straight to a small-time bookie (Lawrence) to seek financial backing for a jewelry caper he had planned before he was sent up. Lawrence introduces him to a ‘big fixer’ corrupt lawyer Calhern, who has squandered his fortune on his lusty young mistress (Monroe). Calhern agrees to fence the jewels after the job but secretly plans a double cross.... A sensational film noir classic and one of the greatest crime films of all time, the Asphalt Jungle gave a big boost to the struggling career of Sterling Hayden, once billed as ‘the most beautiful man in the movies,’ and was a spark that helped ignite Monroe’s meteoric rise to stardom. Marc Lawrence is terrific as the weasely middleman, and Jaffe earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role as the luckless criminal mastermind with a costly penchant for young girls. He lost the Oscar but went on to co-star in the successful TV medical series Ben Casey.”
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TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight ET (and 10 am ET Sunday Morning) is Nora Prentiss (1947). Ann Sheridan stars along with Kent Smith, Bruce Bennett, Robert Alda, and Rosemary DeCamp, directed by Vincent Sherman.
Film Noir Guide: "This is an appealing tale about a successful doctor (Smith) who falls for a nightclub singer (Sheridan) but can't get up the nerve to ask his wife for a divorce. What he eventually does about the situation takes a lot more nerve than simply 'fessing up to his old lady. Bennett is Smith's partner, a playboy doctor whose lifestyle Smith frowns upon until he finds himself in the proverbial glass house. Alda is the nightclub owner smitten with Sheridan, his star performer, and DeCamp is Smith's overly secure wife, whose hectic schedule contributes to her husband's straying. Sheridan is terrific as the facetious, worldly dame, a role she played so well in an earlier film noir, They Drive by Night, and would do once again a few years later in Woman on the Run. James Wong Howe's expressionistic photography and Nash's fine script makes this 'woman's picture' a real winner."
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