Crossfire [Blu-ray]

Director: Edward Dmytryk Edward Dmytryk

Overview

A landmark Hollywood drama for its sharp look at the touchy subject of anti-Semitic attitudes in the U.S., Crossfire is set in a hotel just after the end of WW II and begins with the murder of a Jewish guest. The prime suspects are a trio of recently returned GIs, and a level-headed detective sets off to find which one of them (if not all of them) is guilty. Robert Ryan gives a fine performance in an underwritten role, but the film is otherwise visually static and somewhat pretentious, lacking a meaningful style and showing little depth. Despite its flaws, the film has some power and caused controversy. Because of the film's subtext of prejudice and anti-Semitism, filmmaker Edward Dmytryk became one of the first 10 Hollywood figures blacklisted by McCarthy's House Committee on Un-American Activities.

Product Details

Release Date:	03/16/2021
UPC:	0883929738380
Original Release:	1947
Rating:	NR
Source:	Warner Archives
Language:	English
Time:	1:25:00
Sales rank:	18,406

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Robert Young	Capitán Finlay
Robert Mitchum	Sargento Keeley
Robert Ryan	Montgomery
Gloria Grahame	Ginny
Paul Kelly	El hombre
Sam Levene	Joseph Samuels
Jacqueline White	Mary Mitchell
Steve Brodie	Floyd Bowers
George Cooper	Arthur Mitchell,Actor
Lex Barker	Harry
Richard Benedict	Bill
Marlo Dwyer	Miss Lewis/Miss White
Harry Harvey	Man
Carl Faulkner	Deputy
Jay Norris	Military Police
Robert Bray	Military Police
George Turner	Military Police
Don Cadell	Military Police
Philip Morris	Police Sergeant
Kenneth MacDonald	Major
Allan Ray	Soldier
Bill Nind	Waiter
George Meader	Police Surgeon
Bill Phipps	Leroy
Richard Powers	Detective
George Duryea	Detective Dick
Roy Webb	Composer

Technical Credits

John Paxton

Edward Dmytryk	Director
John Paxton	Screenwriter
Dore Schary	Executive Producer
Adrian Scott	Producer
Russell A. Cully	Special Effects
Clem Portman	Sound Effects,Sound/Sound Designer
John E. Tribby	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

Edward Dmytryk's classic noir on anti-Semitism in the military was adapted from a Richard Brooks novel, The Brick Foxhole, whose actual subject was homophobia in the army, which RKO found too hot to handle at the time. Like many noirs, it's steeped in the malaise of returning GIs, still recovering from the trauma of war and trying to adapt to a changed world. Dmytryk evokes a miasma of angst with the noir vocabulary of looming shadows, oblique angles, and low-key lighting. Robert Young's professorial detective leads the investigation, which takes on a collective quality as Robert Mitchum's sergeant becomes involved, the film counterpointing their quiet sanity against the disorientation of the mustered-out soldiers and the raging paranoia of the murderer. Robert Ryan is most impressive as the latter, a matrix of festering resentments of which his anti-Semitism is only one. The residue of the original story remains in a slightly off-kilter scene, apparently detached from the narrative, in which a GI (George Cooper) discusses his alienation with a sympathetic stranger (Sam Levene). The first film to address the subject of anti-Semitism, it remains effective despite moments of preachiness. Test screenings of the film for Jewish audiences revealed their well-grounded concern that the association of such blatant pathology, as the murderer's with anti-Semitism, would allow viewers to ignore the far more commonplace and insidious forms of that prejudice. Due to the film's content, in October 1947, producer Adrian Scott and director Dmytryk were called to testify before HUAC and became the first two members of the famed Hollywood Ten, a group of producers, directors, and writers, including Ring Lardner Jr. and Dalton Trumbo, all of whom initially refused to testify against their colleagues, and were sentenced to prison terms. In return for an early release in 1950, Dmytryk identified former colleagues as Communists, and in 1951, named Scott, his friend, and the producer of his three best films, as a member of the Communist party. Scott never produced another film, while Dmytryk resumed his career, never to repeat the quality of his earlier work.