The recent shock waves from the Paris Louvre heist joins a long line of calamities throughout cultural and political history. From England’s crown jewel attempts and multiple robbery and conspiracy plans globally before and many since, some still unsolved, such debacles still occur regularly in the bizarre world of museums and treasure houses for reasons reflecting incompetence, madness and occasionally brilliance at the sheer planning and execution.

The film world has long been on to it and then some with a plethora of heist movies, most forgettable but one standing above all the rest for art and understanding — John Huston’s “The Asphalt Jungle,” a 1950 film great beyond genre.

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