Pass the Soup!

The Asphalt Jungle by John Huston (1950)



On the right: Doc Riedenschneider (or "Herr Doktor" as he proposes himself in the beginning):

Everything is here, from the observed routine of the personnel to the alarm system, the types of locks on the doors, the aging condition of the main safe, and so forth and so forth. Take my word for it, Mr. Emmerich, this is a ripe plum ready to fall...Perhaps you know my reputation. I've engineered some very big things.

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Doc:

I can smell one [a cop] a block off.

Cobby:

Oh, don't worry about Ditrich. He's on my payroll, practically a partner. Me and him - we're like that. (He holds up two fingers.)

Doc:

Experience has taught me never to trust a policeman. Just when you think one's all right, he turns legit.

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Doc:

Put in hours and hours of planning. Figure everything down to the last detail. Then what? Burglar alarms start going off all over the place for no sensible reason. A gun fires of its own accord and a man is shot. And a broken down old cop, no good for anything but chasing kids, has to trip over us. Blind accident. What can you do against blind accidents? One thing I ought to have figured and didn't was Emmerich. I know why I didn't. I'm not kidding myself. It was the extra dough he promised. I got hungry. Greed made me blind.

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ps Sam Jaffe plays Doc and the film also features Marilyn Monroe in one of her first roles.