847 The Asphalt Jungle

Discuss releases by Criterion and the films on them. Threads may contain spoilers!
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

847 The Asphalt Jungle

#1 Post by swo17 » Thu Sep 15, 2016 4:22 pm

The Asphalt Jungle

Image Image

In a smog-choked city somewhere in the American Midwest, an aging criminal mastermind, newly released from prison, hatches a plan for a million-dollar jewel heist and draws a wealthy lawyer and a cherry-picked trio of outlaws into his carefully devised but inevitably doomed scheme. Anchored by an abundance of nuanced performances from a gifted ensemble—including a tight-jawed Sterling Hayden and a sultry Marilyn Monroe in her breakout role—this gritty crime classic by John Huston climaxes in a meticulously detailed anatomy of a robbery that has reverberated through the genre ever since. An uncommonly naturalistic view of a seamy underworld, The Asphalt Jungle painstakingly depicts the calm professionalism and toughness of its gangster heroes while evincing a remarkable depth of compassion for their all-too-human fragility, and it showcases a master filmmaker at the height of his powers.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary from 2004 by film historian Drew Casper, featuring recordings of actor James Whitmore
• New interviews with film noir historian Eddie Muller and cinematographer John Bailey
• Archival footage of writer-director John Huston discussing the film
Pharos of Chaos, a 1983 documentary about actor Sterling Hayden
• Episode of the television program City Lights from 1979 featuring John Huston
• Audio excerpts of archival interviews with Huston
• Excerpts from footage of the 1983 AFI Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony honoring Huston, featuring actor Sam Jaffe and the filmmaker
• Trailer
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien
• More!

User avatar
Ribs
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:14 pm

Re: 847 The Asphalt Jungle

#2 Post by Ribs » Thu Sep 15, 2016 4:44 pm

Glad to see they've done a new translation for the subtitles

mteller
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:23 pm

Re: 847 The Asphalt Jungle

#3 Post by mteller » Thu Sep 15, 2016 4:47 pm

domino harvey wrote:Can't wait for the minuscule new extras!!!!!
whoops

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: 847 The Asphalt Jungle

#4 Post by domino harvey » Thu Sep 15, 2016 5:32 pm

Only too happy to be proven wrong!

User avatar
Ashirg
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:10 am
Location: Atlanta

Re: 847 The Asphalt Jungle

#5 Post by Ashirg » Thu Sep 15, 2016 6:33 pm

Is this first Marilyn Monroe on DVD/blu-ray in the collection?

User avatar
Jeff
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:49 pm
Location: Denver, CO

Re: 847 The Asphalt Jungle

#6 Post by Jeff » Sat Sep 17, 2016 12:47 pm

Ashirg wrote:Is this first Marilyn Monroe on DVD/blu-ray in the collection?
Yes.

The extras here really are something else. That two-hour Sterling Hayden doc played festivals got a small theatrical release in 1983. It's sounds like it's not some hagiography either, but more of a direct cinema experience with the aging and embittered Hayden. I'm not familiar with Toronto TV personality Brian Linehan or his City Lights show, but it sounds like he was lauded for his interview style, and it's always fun to hear Huston as raconteur. Throw in the Eddie Muller and John Bailey interviews, and you've got quite a package. This is how you upgrade a Warner release to your standards, Criterion.

I wonder if the "More!" might be an episode of the TV series of The Asphalt Jungle. It mostly had nothing to do with the film, but one episode, "The Professor," is more or less a remake of it.

User avatar
Ribs
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:14 pm

Re: 847 The Asphalt Jungle

#7 Post by Ribs » Tue Nov 08, 2016 5:19 pm


User avatar
FrauBlucher
Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:28 pm
Location: Greenwich Village

Re: 847 The Asphalt Jungle

#8 Post by FrauBlucher » Tue Nov 08, 2016 5:36 pm

This looks pretty awesome. CC does another stellar job with an old hollywood b&w.

flyonthewall2983
Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2005 3:31 pm
Location: Indiana
Contact:

Re: 847 The Asphalt Jungle

#9 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Tue Dec 13, 2016 8:42 am


User avatar
jazzo
Joined: Sun Nov 17, 2013 12:02 am

Re: 847 The Asphalt Jungle

#10 Post by jazzo » Mon Dec 19, 2016 4:41 pm

Had a blast revisiting this film, but had one beautiful unexpected pleasure at watching the 1979 City Lights episode on the disc. I knew it was there, but never made the connection that this was, of course, the same City Lights with Brian Linehan that I used to come home to in the suburbs of Toronto and find my mother watching almost every day.

And then I remembered this little beauty from childhood and chuckled to myself all evening:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dCEUErRzWE

richast2
Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2005 9:49 am

Re: 847 The Asphalt Jungle

#11 Post by richast2 » Fri Nov 03, 2017 11:27 am

Jeff wrote:That two-hour Sterling Hayden doc played festivals got a small theatrical release in 1983. It's sounds like it's not some hagiography either, but more of a direct cinema experience with the aging and embittered Hayden.
I finally got around to watching Pharos of Chaos the other night and man is it dark. As a film, it's pretty poorly made, but the interviews they got with Hayden are fascinating and unsettling. Hayden is incredibly drunk, stoned, and bitter throughout. At that point in his life, he basically was Roger Wade from The Long Goodbye. In the hands of better filmmakers, this could have been a great documentary. Still, it's an incredibly frank portrait of a renowned actor, and I'm glad Criterion included it on the disc.

User avatar
Florinaldo
Joined: Thu Jul 31, 2008 7:38 pm
Location: Canada

Re: 847 The Asphalt Jungle

#12 Post by Florinaldo » Wed Mar 07, 2018 8:03 pm

I was watching the Eddie Mueller piece, with him providing his rather generic schtick on film noir and Huston, when a very amusing blunder caught my eye. While discussing the influence of the film on the novel "Du rififi chez les hommes" by Auguste Le Breton, there is a cutatway to what we are supposed to think is a picture of the author.

Well, it's a writer all right, and even one named "Breton".

Except it's André Breton, the High Pope of Surrealism. Obviously, someone did a hasty research job for this supplement and confused the two Bretons, even though they do not look remotely similar.

The documentary on Sterling Hayden was for me the highlight of this edition (besides the movie), morbidly fascinating but impossible to stop watching, if only in spurts.

User avatar
whaleallright
Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2005 12:56 am

Re: 847 The Asphalt Jungle

#13 Post by whaleallright » Fri Mar 09, 2018 10:35 pm

Florinaldo wrote:impossible to stop watching, if only in spurts.
isn't this a contradiction?

oof on the Breton thing.

User avatar
Florinaldo
Joined: Thu Jul 31, 2008 7:38 pm
Location: Canada

Re: 847 The Asphalt Jungle

#14 Post by Florinaldo » Sun Mar 11, 2018 1:50 pm

whaleallright wrote:
Florinaldo wrote:impossible to stop watching, if only in spurts.
isn't this a contradiction?
.
No.

No matter how much SH's drunken philosophical ramblings may induce me to take well needed breaks, I found myself always compelled to go back to the documentary. I thought it was simple and self-evident, but apparently not.

Post Reply