The perfect crime goes awry in W.R. Burnett's tough and brutally wise 1949 novel The Asphalt Jungle, and the problem is, in the end, human nature. Told in 40 short, blunt but richly atmospheric chapters, the novel meticulously details the planning and execution of a major jewel heist. The robbery is devised by Doc Reimenschneider, a master criminal just out of prison. It requires the involvement of a variety of different people, from the muscle -- an itinerant hood named Dix, an overgrown country boy lost in the city -- to the fence, a successful but sleazy lawyer named Alonzo Emmerich. The ever-growing cast of characters in this can't-miss scheme will ultimately be its downfall, though, in an atmosphere where suspicion and double-cross destroy the pipe dreams of each of the participants. Burnett wrote the kind of crime novels that would be described, in current Hollywood parlance, as "character-driven." What is ultimately fascinating about The Asphalt Jungle isn't the heist or the planning of it, but the people involved, how and why they are brought to this point, and what the chemistry of the situation does to them. The point of view changes throughout the novel, and not just within the gang of conspirators. There are also an honest but embattled police commissioner, attempting to enforce the law (on both sides of it), and a cynical reporter named Farbstein. "Like Diogenes he'd been looking for an honest man for a long time," Burnett writes of Farbstein, "and he had begun to feel that the flame in his lantern would splutter out before he found him." The Asphalt Jungle finds its "honest man" in Dix, a petty crook who, in his own way, is as decent as the "good guys," the commissioner and the reporter. A man who always seems angrily out of his element, Dix longs to leave the rat race of the city and return to the idealized country setting of his childhood. He thinks the jewel heist might make his dream possible. In spite of what happens, he comes close -- painfully, wistfully, with punishing irony.

Lou Farbstein, middle-aged but still referred to as the bright boy of the World (and bright boy he had actually been twenty years back), neither liked nor disliked Police Commissioner Theo. J. Hardy, the new power in the city. He regarded him as a rather weird phenomenon, wrote about him often with curious impartiality, and greatly influenced the opinion of the press generally by his sharp but fair pronouncements. Much of what he wrote stuck. For instance, when he referred to the Commissioner as a "Harold Ickes type character," the other reporters realized at once the aptness of the phrase and began to make an exception of the sharp-featured, countrified ex-judge when they wrote their frequent excoriations of the corrupt gentry managing the now shaky City Administration. Owing to Farbstein's clarifying phrase, they perceived that Hardy was honest, able, hard-working, and with plenty of guts; they also saw that he was extremely irritable, a little vindictive, and at times-ridiculous. For some weeks after Hardy had taken over, the reporters had considered him a mere front-a lay figure, humdrum and respectable, behind which the thieves and connivers of the City Hall intended to continue to carry on their denounced malfeasance. Now they knew better. Hardy was the City Administration's one hope, and the politicians stood trembling in the background. If Hardy could not save them, they would all be voted out at the next city election, their enemies and ill-wishers would be in power, and they themselves would be in danger of indictment and conviction, or at least public disgrace.
Bulley, the Mayor, had gradually faded into insignificance. Curtis, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, was on a highly publicized vacation in California, taking a "well-earned rest," as Farbstein wrote in the World, bringing appreciative snickers from those who were in the know. And Dolph Franc, the formidable Chief of Police, was all smiles and sweetness, in contrast to his former cynical ill-humor, and in public kept referring to Commissioner Hardy as "my great little boss."
Nevertheless, the newspapers continued attacking the Administration with non-partisan unanimity-especially the Police Department-and Hardy, no longer able to ignore the blasts and now thoroughly aroused, had sent out invitations to a press conference, to be held at night in his battered and dingy office in the Old City Building.
The reporters sat around smoking their own cigarettes and grumbling. What kind of a lousy conference was this? No free liquor. Not even common courtesy. The harness-bull secretary in the outer office had looked at them as if they were a group about to be shoved into the show-up line.
Only Farbstein was unperturbed. Like Diogenes, he'd been looking for an honest man for a long time, and he had begun to feel that the flame in his lantern would sputter out before he found him. But, though the flame had shortened almost to nothing, here he was at last. Hardy! It wasn't necessary to like him. In fact, it was impossible. But you could respect him, and to Farbstein-at this juncture in his life-that was everything.
He sat listening calmly while the men about him yapped and raved. In spite of all their exterior toughness and cynicism, they were good solid guys, fathers and tax-payers. They'd see the light in all its unaccustomed brightness soon.
A sudden silence fell when the Commissioner walked in. It was a cold night and he was wearing a heavy ulster, old-fashioned rubbers, and a battered, sweat-stained hat, pulled down almost to his eyes.

 

A seemingly foolproof, elaborately planned jewel heist goes terribly wrong in this famous novel by author of LITTLE CAESAR. Basis of a highly acclaimed and influential 1949 film directed by John Huston and featuring Sterling Hayden, Sam Jaffe, Jean Hagen and a very young Marilyn Monroe.

William Riley Burnett (1899-1981) was a master of journeyman fiction whose work is so efficient and skillful that it has left him all but anonymous in a world that deifies his contemporaries James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Burnett wrote some 36 novels and either wrote or collaborated on 60 screenplays, not to mention dozens of magazines stories (I the days when magazines published fiction regularly), short stories, plays and even songs. Just a handful of his novels represents a rich vein of contemporary popular American culture -- Little Caesar, High Sierra, The Asphalt Jungle, The Dark Command and Nobody Lives Forever.

Burnett was born in Springfield Ohio, to a family active in local and state politics. After he began writing, he moved to Chicago in the late 1920s, at the height of Al Capone's dominance of the city. The atmosphere there -- Burnett was one of the first on the scene after the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, though he refused to look at the carnage -- inspired his first great success Little Caesar, unforgettably filmed in 1930 with Edward G. Robinson in the title role. But Burnett was not merely interested in sensationalism -- the novel is preceded by a quote from Machiavelli's The Prince. The novel is said to have had a profound influence on such writers as William Faulkner, Horace McCoy and Graham Greene.

Burnett had a strong relationship with Hollywood thereafter -- as novelist and screenwriter -- and eventually he found a particular champion in writer/director John Huston, who would call Burnett "one of the most neglected American writers." Burnett collaborated with Huston on the adaptation of High Sierra in 1941, a classic film (directed by Raoul Walsh) in which Humphrey Bogart redefined himself in the role of Roy Earle. Their paths crossed again when Huston filmed The Asphalt Jungle in 1950. Though Huston lamented the general neglect of Burnett and his work, the Mystery Writers of America remembered. They awarded Burnett their highest honor, the prestigious title of Grand Master, at the 1980 Edgar Awards.

Burnett used the experience of his life in everything he wrote. This, he believed, was the only way for a writer. "I have a very good grip on reality, which I inherited from my father, so I pretty much know the limitations of humanity and the possibilities in life, which aren't very great for anybody," he once said. "You're born, you're gonna have trouble, and you're gonna die. That you know. There's not much else you know."

 

Asphalt Jungle by W. R. Burnett
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