The Asphalt Jungle is a 1950 American film noir heist film directed by John Huston. Based on the 1949 novel of the same name by W. R. Burnett, it tells the story of a jewel robbery in a Midwestern city. The film stars Sterling Hayden and Louis Calhern, and features Jean Hagen, James Whitmore, Sam Jaffe, and John McIntire. Marilyn Monroe also appears, in one of her earliest roles. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards. In 2008, The Asphalt Jungle was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Plot When criminal mastermind Erwin "Doc" Riedenschneider is released from prison after seven years, he visits a bookie named Cobby in an unnamed Midwestern river city. Doc needs $50,000 to hire three men—a safecracker, a driver, and a hooligan—to pull off a huge jewel robbery. Cobby arranges a meeting between Doc and Alonzo Emmerich, a high-living society lawyer and known fixer. Doc tells Emmerich he estimates the theft will yield a cache worth half a million dollars or more. Emmerich agrees to front the money and find a fence. After they leave, Emmerich finds his young girlfriend Angela asleep on the couch. Later Ememerich confesses he is broke to his private detective Bob Brannom. Sent to collect debts owed Emmerich to raise money to pay for the stolen jewels, Brannom comes up empty. Desperate, Emmerich inveigles the thug to help him double-cross the others, proposing a scheme for him to abscond with the gems. Doc secures Louie Ciavelli as his "box man". Ciavelli only trusts Gus Minissi, a hunchbacked diner owner, to be the getaway driver. Last hired is chronically gambling-strapped tough Dix Handley, a hulking Kentucky hayseed known to Gus. Dix tells Doll Conovan—who is in love with him—of his dream to buy back the horse farm that his family lost after a terrible year that included his father's death and a prized colt breaking its leg. To access the jewelry store, Ciavelli hammers through a brick wall, deactivates an alarm to admit Doc and Dix, and uses home-brewed nitroglycerine to blow open the safe. Things then begin to go drastically wrong. The concussion of the explosion triggers several burglar alarms in the area. The volatile Dix slugs a security guard on rounds. The guard drops his revolver, which goes off and wounds Ciavelli