Word: asphalted
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Asphalt Jungle (MGM) is an ambitious attempt by Director John (Treasure of Sierra Madre) Huston to explore a gang of criminals as human beings, while telling the tense story of an intricately planned $1,000,000 jewel burglary. The two-hour result falls somewhat short of the attempt. But thanks to brilliant direction and skillful work by Co-Scripters Huston and Ben Maddow in adapting a W. R. Burnett novel, it comes close enough to make the film well worth seeing...
Even with its shortcomings, the picture succeeds to a remarkable extent in understanding its criminals, and creating a kind of perverse sympathy for them without condoning their crimes. To have accomplished that within a story which is also a taut and exciting thriller, lifts The Asphalt Jungle high above the run of melodramas that do not score half so well on targets much easier...
...usual supercharged crowds, festive and hungry for thrills, began gathering outside Indianapolis Speedway at dawn. By race time, some 150,000 had crammed their way into the stands and infield to watch 33 underslung, overpowered little cars roar around the 2½-mile brick and asphalt track in the annual 500-mile grind...
...fleet of 33 fire trucks converged, sirens moaning, on the burning wrecks. By the time they got there, flame was shooting 300 feet into the air and heat was melting overhead trolley wires, and turning the asphalt paving to lava. Five nearby houses and buildings were on fire. There was nothing to do but pump in water and chemicals, clear the buildings-and wait...
Then the Boston road scandal broke last month. Boston's Financial Commission drilled into year-old street jobs and dug up dishonesty and corruption. Where contracts called for excavations, back fill, crushed till, asphalt, oil, gravel, and hot-top asphalt, they found nothing but hot-top asphalt. The repair was only skin deep; beneath the hot-top asphalt lay the old street and fraud...