Marilyn Monroe's drama coach, Natasha Lytess, stayed by the rising starlet's side while on the set of The Asphalt Jungle. At the end of each take, Monroe would look to Lytess for approval. In the finished film, at the end of her first scene, Monroe can be seen glancing toward her coach as she walks off- camera.

One of John Huston's long-time racetrack friends, Benny Burt, was cast in a bit part as a stool pigeon.

Photography for The Asphalt Jungle was by Harold "Hal" Rosson, who happened to be MGM star Jean Harlow's last husband. The Asphalt Jungle was labeled "A John Huston Film," the first time Huston received such prestigious billing in his long career. John Huston filmed the robbery sequence with the on-set advice of safecracking experts in order to ensure authenticity.

John McIntire, who plays Police Commissioner Hardy in The Asphalt Jungle, played another important law officer ten years later. In director Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), McIntire played Sheriff Chambers, who investigates the strange goings-on at the Bates Motel.

Memorable Quotes from THE ASPHALT JUNGLE

Alonzo D. Emmerich: There's nothing so different about them. After all, crime, my dear, is merely a left-handed form of human endeavor.

Doc Erwin Riedenschneider: 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?

Doc Erwin Riedenschneider: Hooligans - they're just like left-handed pitchers, all have a screw loose somewhere.

Doc Erwin Riedenschneider: One way or another we all pay for our vices.
Angela Phinlay: What about my trip, Uncle Lon?
Alonzo D. Emmerich: Don't worry, baby, you'll have plenty of trips.

Dr. Swanson: He hasn't got enough blood left in him to keep a chicken alive.

Police Commissioner Hardy: People are being cheated, robbed, murdered, raped. And that goes on 24 hours a day, every day in the year. And that's not exceptional, that's usual. It's the same in every city in the modern world. But suppose we had no police force, good or bad. Suppose we had... just silence. Nobody to listen, nobody to answer. The battle's finished. The jungle wins. The predatory beasts take over.

Cobby: Here's to the drink habit. It's the only one I got that don't get me into trouble.

Doc Riedenschneider: One way or another, we all work for our vice.

Dix Handley: Why don't you quit cryin' and get me some bourbon?

by Scott McGee