Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

thinbeach Its hard to like 'Asphalt' simply because the lead characters are so unlikeable. A policeman who is too weak to stand by his moral compass falls for a seductive jewel thief. The film consists of his attempts to refrain from her seductions, feeling low after his failures, then going back only to fail again. It is fine for half an hour or so (the first half hour is the best), but becomes tedious and quickly loses momentum. It doesn't help that these femme-fatale stories were so overdone already.The most winning aspect of this film is the technical achievements. After a shaky Vertov-esque beginning, it quickly becomes sleek and controlled, very modern. The noir cinematography is typically excellent for the German silents of the time. Despite these virtues however, it is not a story that moves you in any way, except to strong dislike of the characters.

maksquibs UFA helmer Joe May, once spoken of in tandem with F W Murnau or Fritz Lang, ended his career struggling for gigs on B-list Hollywood fodder. But this late silent, a superb psychological meller lovingly restored with a fine new score on KINO DVD, shows him in top form. It's the old story of a naive cop corrupted by a shady lady. He bends the rules for a night of love. But when her rich lover returns, tragedy strikes, and his disgrace can only be erased through her redemption. Thrillingly designed & shot in a studio-created Berlin, May uses the camera with Murnau-like freedom & expressivity, only stumbling over the pacing of a few scenes he has trouble ending. Gustav Frohlich will always be stamped by his silly perf in Lang's METROPOLIS, but in this more naturalistic mode, he's touching & handsome. As the femme fatale, Betty Amann leaves an odd taste. She's an obvious precursor/model for Liza Minnelli's Sally Bowles in CABARET (had Bob Fosse seen this film?), but she's also a dead ringer for Tony Curtis in his drag mode in Billy Wilder's SOME LIKE IT HOT. Perhaps not as much of a stretch as it sounds since Wilder was @ UFA in '29 and even wrote May's first Hollywood pic. (05/13/07)

MARIO GAUCI I wasn't familiar with the work of director Joe May - apart from THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS (1940) and the Silent epic THE Indian TOMB (1921), a film I was disappointed by and which I always considered more of a Fritz Lang film anyway - although I had always been intrigued by this one and, now, thanks to Eureka and "Masters Of Cinema", I've managed to catch up with it.From watching ASPHALT - followed, in short order, by SPIONE (1928) and TARTUFFE (1925) - I've reacquainted myself with the peerless craftsmanship of German cinema during the 1920s; indeed, May's film is technically quite irreproachable - particularly his depiction of city-life by night, but also the opening montage (echoing contemporaneous Russian cinema) which forms part of the title sequence. Apart from this, the film's slight but compelling plot later became a staple of the noir genre where a naïve man is embroiled in the sordid life of a femme fatale with tragic consequences (the most obvious example, ironically enough, being perhaps Fritz Lang's superlative THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW [1944]).In this regard, the film benefits greatly from the perfect casting of the two roles but especially the captivating Betty Amann, who effortlessly exudes sexuality throughout: distracting the elderly owner of the jewel shop with her considerable charms, while casually concealing one of the precious rocks in the tip of her umbrella; seducing the young, inexperienced traffic cop by excusing herself from his presence but, when he follows her into the bedroom, finds she has slipped under the sheets and is waiting for him; when he tries to leave, she literally leaps on him and, by wrapping herself around his waist, making it practically impossible for him not to give in to her. Also notable is a brief pickpocketing scene at the beginning featuring Hans Albers; the rather violent fight between the boy and the girl's elderly associate/lover, when the latter comes back to her apartment and catches them in flagrante, in which the furniture (conveniently held by visible wires) gets literally thrown around the room; the concluding act, then, marked by a number of twists (which lead to a sort of happy ending more akin to Bresson's spiritually-infused PICKPOCKET [1959] than the hard-boiled noirs it inspired), is enormously satisfying.

F Gwynplaine MacIntyre 'Asphalt' was directed by Joe May, a fairly talented director/producer who helped start the career of Fritz Lang, one of the greatest film directors of all time. Joe May had the misfortune to be Jewish in Hitler's Germany. Fortunately, he escaped to Hollywood. Unfortunately, none of Joe May's Hollywood films are especially important, although I enjoy his horror film 'The Invisible Man Returns'.'Asphalt' is a turgid drama that could almost be conceived for Emil Jannings, as it fits his formula: highly respected uniformed authority figure is corrupted and humiliated by a scarlet harlot. What keeps this from becoming a Jannings vehicle is the fact that the male protagonist is a handsome virile young man, not the fleshly Jannings. Gustav Fröhlich (the young hero of 'Metropolis') stars as Albert Holk, a traffic cop in Berlin. Despite his lowly rank, Holk has expectations of a splendid career: he is utterly honest, and his father is a highly respected police sergeant.But along comes a woman. Elsa (Betty Amann) is a beautiful young jewel thief. Escaping from her latest heist, she runs afoul of Officer Holk, but manages to ditch the evidence so that she seems to be innocent. A romance develops between the two young people. Of course, he doesn't know she's a crook. She is sincerely attracted to him, but not quite enough to give up her criminal career.SPOILERS COMING. Hans Schlettow gives a solid performance as the villain of the piece. His character is already embroiled in a sexual relationship with Elsa. But just now he's in Paris, pretending to be a staffer at the German consulate while he plans a bank heist. Eventually he robs the bank and comes back to Berlin with the swag ... just in time to catch Elsa in the arms of the policeman. Albert kills Hans, then confesses everything to his father. The ending is plausible, although it would have been rather less plausible if this same story took place in America or Britain.There is some excellent photography here, and some good performances from the leads. The street scenes in Berlin, pre-Hitler, are impressive. I'll rate this movie 7 in 10.