Whilst on one level a straightforward heist morality tale, there’s something more deeply human operating in Huston’s glorious noir. The venality of the human species is laid, bare, determined by the amorality of capitalism. In the pursuit of wealth, everyone’s a loser in the end. The film is adorned with a host of topnotch performances from its ensemble cast, including the ingenue Monroe. Characters are conscious of the mistakes they make, the deep water they find themselves adrift in, and this recognition makes them strangely sympathetic, as though they have to suffer the journey to destruction in order to remember who they really are. Huston manages the innately difficult task of introducing new characters at regular intervals, without in any way affecting the rhythm or the tension. The hunchback driver, Lou, only really comes into his own well past the midway point, but suddenly he’s a vivid character, tragic in his own way. The director and his screenwriters post the heist itself at the midpoint of the film, rather than the end of the second act or the dénouement. The heist loses nothing of its tension, but this placing also allows the film to focus on its true interest, the hubris that greed provokes before the fall.
