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Yet other sorts of quests, less self-interested, populate the world of noir as well. As Irwin notes in his fine comparison of noir criminality with the "fair-play method" of traditional "analytic detective fiction," the clear sense of justice publicly affirmed or even a neat solution of the plot is absent from noir. Instead, what noir presents is a "puzzle of character" in a world where it is unclear even what the most important mystery is. Not the one-dimensional struggle between the detective and the criminal but that struggle intertwined with another and often more significant struggle, between the detective and himself: this is the focus of the labyrinthine plot structure of noir.
A number of these themes are on display in the most influential film from the first volume of the Noir Classics collection, The Asphalt Jungle, whose very title nicely encapsulates the world in which noir is most at home: the dark city with its tall buildings blocking out natural light and entrapping human beings in a labyrinth. That is precisely the setting for Asphalt Jungle, where the city is never directly lit by sunlight and the interiors are typically windowless. Although the plot itself is not all that complex or compelling, the film provides rich background stories on a number of individuals conspiring in a theft. The two most interesting characters are at opposite poles of the criminal world. An elderly and well-educated mastermind named Doc (Sam Jaffe), who has just been released from prison, orchestrates the plan for a heist. Doc, the brains, enlists the services of Dix (Sterling Hayden), the brawn, a man with a gambling addiction.
There is a sense of fatalism about the entire scheme; its failure seems inevitable. But this does not mean that justice is clearly or optimistically affirmed. In the world of The Asphalt Jungle, criminals abound partly because of the corruption of official law enforcement. Toward the end of this film, a bad cop is arrested and the DA proclaims, "without cops, the jungle wins." He goes on to describe the bad guys as men without feeling or mercy, whom the police will hunt down and bring to justice. That may be true of the cold calculations of Doc, but it is not an apt description of Dix. In an ironic and fitting twist on John Huston's observation (in an introductory bonus track) about each character having a dominant vice, Doc's petty lust proves his undoing. He nearly escapes at the end, but when he lingers to admire a young beauty dancing in a diner, the delay enables the cops to catch up with him. Meanwhile, an injured and bleeding Dix escapes with his girlfriend, Doll, from the city and into the light of country, to his childhood farm. In a genuinely moving scene, a rapidly fading Dix talks of his childhood and then dies with his weeping girlfriend by his side. The ending indicates that the official account of these individual lives would be wrong to see them as lacking every vestige of humanity. Dix may not be virtuous, but he is not unsympathetic either.
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