Jules Dassin takes another stab at modernizing an ancient Greek legend, maybe in hopes of rectifying the earlier attempt that resulted in arguably his biggest debacle, Phaedra. Here, a glamorous international star of stage and screen (Melina Mercouri), who looks like Catherine Deneuve from the back of her luxurious blonde …
Irwin Winkler's remake of Jules Dassin's 1950 film noir (graciously "dedicated to Jules Dassin," a victim of the Hollywood blacklist that Winkler had dramatized in his Guilty by Suspicion). But that was then; this is later: so forget atmosphere, forget mood, forget suspense, and stand clear for a whirling-dervish star …
The French Asphalt Jungle, complete with equal or greater amounts of sob-sister sentimentality and dilettantish toughness and cynicism. Equal or greater amounts, too, of tension and telling detail: as in its American forerunner, the heist itself is the film's overtowering centerpiece. Among many valuable how-to tips: the closed umbrella poked …