Talk:The Asphalt Jungle

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[edit] Trivia section

All the trivia needs sourcing or else should be deleted. For example, in what way did this film "inspire" Dog Day Afternoon? The two films do not have much in common other than both involving heists. --Mathew5000 02:18, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the oddly sweeping claim about all the films "inspired" by this one. I usually hate "trivia" sections, but I think this one has some interesting points. KarlBunker 11:59, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I've deleted. When was the last time you checked an encyclopedia article (it does not matter which one) and found a TRIVIA section. In that spirit, I deleted and kept one notable line. Best -- Luigibob (talk) 11:07, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "one of the first of the caper films"

The article's intro describes The Asphalt Jungle as one of the first of the caper films, but I don't think that's true. Weren't there many heist films produced in the 1940s and even earlier? That's what Noir of the Week says. If you search IMDb for plot keywords by date, you can see that there were many films before Asphalt featuring jewel theft or bank robbery. Not all of those were properly in the genre of "heist films" (where the robbery is somewhat complex, planned out beforehand, etc.) but some of them were. It might be correct to say that Asphalt is the ultimate heist film or that it revolutionized the genre, but I don't think it's accurate to call it "one of the first". --Mathew5000 00:50, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Since it only says "one of the first" I think that's sufficiently vague to be not incorrect. Something like "perhaps the most notable of early caper films" might be more correct, but that's kind of an awkward mouthful. KarlBunker 13:25, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

But isn't it a bad thing on Wikipedia to be vague (even "sufficiently vague")? I think it does give the wrong impression to call this movie "one of the first" caper films. It’s as if you described Sudan as one of the first independent countries in Africa. Technically that would be correct (or at least, sufficiently vague so as not to be incorrect) because there were only a few independent African countries prior to Sudan. However, it would be misleading because phrasing it that way suggests a short time period between Sudan's independence and that of earlier countries, when in fact there were millennia separating them. --Mathew5000 00:30, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Vagueness is inevitable and therefore correct in some subjects. As you pointed out above, the definition of "caper film" isn't precise, so it would be incorrect to say "xxx was the first (or 2nd or 3rd or whatever) caper film". KarlBunker 03:33, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Setting? Cincinnati or not?

In the spoilers, it states that the city is unnamed but being a few hours from Kentucky "confirms" that it is Cinncinnati. Cinncinnati lies across the river from Kentucky, so it confirms nothing. Specifically Dix's family farm is ten hours away. I think that any place in Kentucky suitable as a horse farm could be reached in much less time than 10 hours, so it would seem that it would be a different city altogether

I think I read somewhere that the film originally was going to be expressly set in Cincinnati, but they thought there would be legal problems with implying that the Cincinnatti police force was corrupt; thus they took all the references to the city out of the script. But I can't find a source for this so perhaps I am misremembering it, or maybe I'm thinking of some other film. --Mathew5000 02:53, 30 December 2006 (UTC)