The Killing / The Asphalt Jungle

THE KILLING, 1956, MGM Repertory, 83 min. Stanley Kubrick’s tough-as-nails heist film about a robbery at a racetrack features an incredible rogue’s gallery of great character actors, including Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Elisha Cook Jr., Marie Windsor and Timothy Carey. One of the most entertaining crime films ever made, propelled by Kubrick’s no-nonsense approach and screenwriter Jim Thompson’s biting, chiseled-in-stone dialogue (based on Lionel White’s novel Clean Break.)

THE ASPHALT JUNGLE, 1950, Warner Bros., 112 min. The kingpin of caper films, featuring one of the best ensemble casts ever. Director John Huston's neo-realist adaptation of W. R. Burnett’s novel examines the ambitions of small-time hoods and brought a new level of empathy and authenticity to crime -- that "left-handed form of human endeavor." Famous as the film that introduced Marilyn Monroe, THE ASPHALT JUNGLE deserves renewed recognition as a crucial work of noir Americana.