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This chapter explains the romance of the caper in John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle (1950). Based on the novel by W. R. Burnett, The Asphalt Jungle is the ur-example for the subgenre. The chapter contends that, whatever the setting, the result of a heist in these kinds of movies is failure not because of the ratiocinative powers of the police but because of the inevitability of betrayal, miscalculation, and violent death. Nearly all of noir is founded on this assumption made somehow romantic and even almost glamorous. Through the film, the chapter briefly explains the ways in which heists can go wrong very quickly, and what it means for the characters involved in the caper.

This chapter contains sections titled: Towards a History of Gangster Fiction Original Gangsters: Lippard and Fitzgerald The Legacy of the Reforming Gaze: From Riis to Asbury New Perspectives: Burnett and Clarke After Prohibition: Fuchs, Wolfert, and the Pathology of the Organization Man Future Gangster: Nostalgia or Global Corruption ‐ Puzo or Winslow?

Probably best known for his screenwriting (an Oscar nomination for Wake Island and a Writers' Guild nomination for The Great Escape), [W. R. Burnett] started as a novelist, and his debut, a gangster tale called Little Caesar, was an instant success and soon became a movie hit.

Though [W. R. Burnett] helped change crime fiction with his first novel, Little Caesar (1929), and was famous as the writer of The Asphalt Jungle (1949) and the screenwriter of High Sierra (1941), he is not widely read today. Iron Man (1930), his second novel, tells the tale of dim-bulb boxer Coke Mason's journey from happy contender to friendless middleweight champion.

Three of the four authors are dead. Erle Stanley Gardner, the author of the ever popular Perry Mason books, died in 1970. Under the pseudonym of A. A. Fair, he wrote the well-known Bertha Cool- Donald Lam mysteries. ''The Bigger They Come'' was the first in the series, and there were about 30 to follow. [W. R. Burnett], who died in 1982, was a fairly prolific author who settled in Hollywood and wrote film scripts as well as mystery novels. His three most famous books are ''The Asphalt Jungle,'' ''Little Caesar'' and ''High Sierra.'' They were made into films that have remained as classic as the novels. [Fredric Brown], who died in 1972, was one of the more prolific writers in the mystery field, as well as in science fiction and television (he wrote scripts for Alfred Hitchcock's programs). Mr. [Harold Q. Masur], born in 1909 and very much with us, is the author of the Scott Jordan novels. [Scott Jordan] is a tough-guy lawyer, as handy with his fists as he is with torts. There were nine Scott Jordan novels, the last one in 1967. ''Bury Me Deep'' was the first. The four books still read well. ''Night of the Jabberwock'' is probably the most contrived. It starts out with supernatural overtones, but those are soon dissipated. The story of a hectic day in the life of the editor of a Midwestern news weekly, it is somewhat of a tour de force that will leave the reader as exhausted as the hero. Everything happens to him on the night of the jabberwock. Brown was a real pro - a natural storyteller who could carry everything before him. Many people much prefer Erle Stanley Gardner's Cool-Lam series to the Perry Masons. Gardner wrote so many courtroom dramas with Mason that the books tend to congeal into formula. At least the first dozen or so featuring Bertha Cool and Donald Lam provided something different. There also is something wonderfully nostalgic about ''The Bigger They Come.'' Bertha looks at Donald. ''That shirt's in bad shape. You can get one for eighty-five cents. Throw that necktie away. You can get a good one for twenty-five or thirty-five cents. . . . I'll bet you haven't eaten for a week. Go get yourself a good breakfast. We'll figure twenty cents for that.'' In 1939 those were the prices.

Writing the \"Somebody Wrote That\" image campaign has always been the most enjoyable part of my job at the WGA. Since the series began, there have been 10 ads, all intended to connect the images on our movie and television screens with the words that gave them life. Choosing the moments to feature in the acls has been a challenge because there are just so many to choose from. Here's how the most recent ad was born.

The production history of the 1950 film \"The Asphalt Jungle,\" John Huston's adaptation of W.R. Burnett's novel, is discussed. Huston's depiction of gangsters as heroes is touched upon, as is his casting of Marilyn Monroe.

Most of us who work in or around the film world have experienced that strangely defining moment when movie magic hit so hard that the images on the screen no longer merely entertained: They pointed to where our futures would be spent.