Sorry, but this is as good as noir gets. Gritty, beautifully shot on location. Crisp and dead level-written dialogue. Not a dead spot in the fast moving story. And Huston's direction underlines this classic.

(Flash Review)This Noir heist film took a slightly different approach from what I've seen than most. Not really a spoiler by saying this is a heist film. It has a solid set up and execution of a heist. There are several parties involved in various and sly ways. Who will come out on top? Will the heist be a success or a failure? Will anyone escape, be capture or even killed? A good portion of the film dealt with each person's outcome post heist. All of this was fairly interesting as the plot was intricate and complemented with nice cinematography. Marilyn Monroe has a brief appears in her early days. Overall, it was a solid Noir caper film but it wasn't overly spectacular. I may need and it would be worth a second viewing to see if I missed any subtleties that may have enhanced its impact.

A group of criminals band together for a daring jewelry heist that goes off as planned. However, bad luck and a series of double crosses cause things to eventually unravel.Director John Huston, who also co-wrote the taut and involving script with Ben Maddow, keeps the gripping story moving along at a steady pace, maintains a tough gritty tone throughout, and offers a flavorsome evocation of the sordid urban underworld environment. This film further benefits from a wonderfully rich rogues' gallery of colorful low-life hoodlums: Sterling Hayden as hard-nosed hooligan Dix Handley, Sam Jaffe as shrewd criminal mastermind Doc Erwin Riedenschneider, who has a fatal weakness for pretty young girls; Louis Calhern as slimy two-timing corrupt lawyer Alonzo D. Emmerich, James Whitmore as friendly hunchbacked wheelman Gus Minissi, Marc Lawrence as sniveling weasel Cobby, Anthony Caruso as hapless safecracker Louis Cavelli, and Barry Kelley as brutish crooked detective Lt. Ditrich. Moreover, Jean Hagen radiates tremendous charm as Handley's loyal, but worried moll Doll Conovan, John McIntire delivers a fine performance as the no-nonsense police commissioner Hardy, and Marilyn Monrie makes a nice impression as Emmerich's sweet'n'sexy mistress Angela Phiney. In addition, this movie has a extra bitter sting thanks to its strong sense of bleak fatalism in which all of the lawbreaking characters are undone by their own flaws and vices. Harold Rosson's sharp black and white cinematography provides a pleasing crisp look. Highly recommended.

Many reviewers of Rififi said it followed The Asphalt Jungle. True, in several ways. Somehow, TAJ wasn't as good as Rififi. Copies can be inferior, but not in this case. TAJ doesn't fully deserve the wild praise it's been getting from many reviewers on this site.Why is this ? Hard to say. Perhaps it's because the characters in Rififi are more focused and better developed, therefore easier to empathize with. The only really enjoyable actor in TAJ is Louis Calhern. His performance is genuinely subtle. Sam Jaffe isn't bad, but he's slightly one-note. His fixation on pin-ups is simplistic and basically unconvincing. Jules Dassin, as César "le Milanais", was more plausible. Sterling Hayden doesn't act in any of his films. He just is, and he's always the same, although with undoubted presence. The girls were over-the-top. The slangy dialogue is over-wrought, and sounds badly dated.Still, it's worth a watch. I watched it maybe 6 or 7 years ago, and again tonight. All I remembered was Doc's girl obsession, and Dix's final meeting with the horses in the paddock at the end. I was surprised by how good Calhern was, second time around.