SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Brooklynn There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Joe Stemme CROSSFIRE is an unusual film in that it is considered both a standard of the Noir genre, while also attaining mainstream success both critically and commercially, having been nominated for Five Oscars including Best Picture, Screenplay (John Paxton) and Director (Edward Dmytryk). Supporting performers Robert Ryan and Gloria Grahame were also nominated. The Academy Awards attention is more attributed to it's social consciousness than for its crime elements. Indeed, the Best Picture that very same year was the similarly themed GENTLEMEN'S AGREEMENT. The concept of a military murder has been the premise of a couple of later notable Academy Awards nominated pictures - Norman Jewison' A SOLDIER'S STORY and Rob Reiner's A FEW GOOD MEN. Make no mistake about it, topical subject matter or not, CROSSFIRE is a fine Noir - particularly the first hour or so which takes place over one long night. The set-up is simple enough as four friends, including Montgomery (Ryan) from military backgrounds go to a bar where they meet two strangers including Sam Levene (Joseph Samuels). As the bar scene winds down, a group of them split off and end up in a hotel apartment. One ends up dead. The police join the scene of the crime in the form of smooth detective Finlay (Robert Young). Questions are asked and not always directly answered. During the night, one of the soldiers Mitchell (George Cooper) wanders off and ends up in the arms of pay-per-dance bar girl Ginny (Grahame). Robert Mitchum plays Keeley, the roommate of the missing soldier, who also gets questioned. The long night sequence is Noir at its finest. Dark, smoky and full of a heavy atmosphere where the longueurs of the evening weigh heavily upon all the characters. Grahame's has a sort of admirer/stalker (Paul Kelly). He's not even given a name, just called "The Man" in the credits. But, Graham (in a star-making performance) and The Man are the kinds of peripheral characters that make great Noir so indelible. Bitter, despondent people with little to look forward to, let alone live for. When day breaks, a couple of problems arise with the film. The first is the long-held belief that the anti-Jewish motive for the killing is 'preachy'. One does have to keep in mind that prejudice was a touchy subject at the time. The novel (by acclaimed filmmaker Richard Brooks) the screenplay is based on actually had homosexuality as the motive - but, that was even more verboten a subject for the era. One can defend the prejudice angle while also wishing that it were presented more cinematically. As fine a performance as Young delivers, it does come off as speechifying. If screenwriter Paxton and Dmytryk had found a way to have woven that subplot into the the investigation scenes it would have flowed more organically and excitingly rather than just watching folks sitting in an office (plus, you have a fine actor like Mitchum basically just looking on and nodding - have him interact somehow). The even larger qualm is that the mystery to be solved isn't that thrilling. Brooks, Dmytryk et al. weren't trying to make the most intricate of murder plots, but, here, it's so obvious who did it that the last act of the movie drags a bit. Although, it must be noted that the final scene is quite well handled. Still, one can't help but feel that the spell cast by first hour of the film is broken by the daybreak (it would require a bit of a re-write, but, I'd love to see a version where the entire story takes place in that one night). Flaws aside, CROSSFIRE is still a fine film. There is a reason it has become a touchstone of the Noir genre as well as a Best Picture nominee that has endured for over 70 years - something which can't be said about a lot of fellow nominees over the decades.

jc-osms This fine film noir added social conscience to the usual panoply of a whodunit murder, flashbacks and atmospheric direction, to become one of the first, if not the first mainstream Hollywood movie to call out against anti-semitism in society, although I was interested to learn that in the source-novel, the "motivation" for the murder was actually homophobia.When it stays on-stereo, the film is great. Robert Ryan, a noted liberal in Hollywood, unflinchingly plays the part of the bullying ex-army commander Montgomery who in a cowardly act cold-bloodedly beats to death a Jewish man he and his small coterie of demobbed soldiers meet in a bar. He unsurprisingly then tries to cover up his vile deed by intimidating his companions as well as trying to mislead the local detective, the pipe- smoking Robert Young. Thankfully evil doesn't prosper in the end. but not before Ryan electrifies the screen with a display of boorish malevolence only accentuated by his formidable presence. I found the back-up story of the sensitive young soldier's disappearance and later hook-up with Gloria Grahame, in a memorable cameo as a dime-a-dance waitress in a local dive, to be unnecessary padding. Neither was I taken with slow-walking, slow-talking Young as the law's man-hunter and it's ridiculous to waste a star of the magnitude of Robert Mitchum in a relatively anonymous supporting role as another soldier. I was left wondering how well Mitchum might have played Ryan's part, certainly this film ain't big enough for the both of them.The film is brave enough to allow the word Jew to be used to avoid all doubt and also to show the villain of the piece as a returning army officer with director Tiomkin crafts many an effective scene, the best perhaps being when he puts the camera below Ryan's grim face as he towers over the young acolyte he's coercing into backing his story.For all its minor faults, this film gets it right on the big issue at stake here and deserved all the kudos it got at the time as ground-breaking film, although ironically its director and screenwriter themselves were subject to discrimination in the notorious anti-Communist Hollywood witch-hunt which followed soon after this particular film's release.

Claudio Carvalho In the Post WWII, Police Captain Finlay (Robert Young) investigates the murder of the Jewish Joseph "Sammy" Samuels (Sam Levene) in his apartment after a beating with his team. Out of the blue, soldier Montgomery "Monty" (Robert Ryan) comes to the apartment and tells that three soldiers – Corporal Arthur "Mitch" Mitchell (George Cooper), soldier Floyd Bowers (Steve Brodie) and himself – had been in the apartment drinking with Sammy, and Mitch would have been the last one to leave the place. Finlay finds Mitch's wallet on the couch and he becomes the prime suspect.Finlay visits Sergeant Peter Keeley (Robert Mitchum) and he tells that his friend Mitch is a sensitive artist incapable to kill a man. Keeley decides to investigate the case to protect and clear the name of his friend. When Keeley discuss the evidences with Finlay, the captain concludes that Mitch did not have the motive to kill Sammy, who was a stranger that he met in a bar. Now Captain Finlay has another suspect and he decides to plot a scheme to expose the assassin."Crossfire" is a great film-noir, with top-notch director (Edward Dmytryk) and cast with three Roberts - Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan and Robert Young; excellent story of murder and prejudice; magnificent screenplay that uses flashbacks to disclose and solve the mystery; and very impressive quotes. The theme – hatred against Jews – is unusual and this is the first time that I see a film-noir with this type of sordid story (and without the femme fatale). My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Rancor" ("Rancor")

tomsview Many of the characters in "Crossfire" speak in a cadence that creates an almost surreal mood. Sam Levine, Paul Kelly and George Cooper all speak as though they are under the control of the same hypnotist. It could just be that the scriptwriter was unable to develop distinctly different characters, but it works well in this film, giving it a quality that has helped secure its place as a classic of film noir.The movie was based on "The Brick Foxhole", a novel by Richard Brooks. In the book the victim was black, but for various reasons, the murdered man in the film became a Jew, with anti-Semitism as the theme.Although Richard Brooks didn't write the screenplay, he later became a film director. Like John Huston with whom he worked on the script of "The Killers", he was a complete storyteller; he wrote as well as produced and directed. He made some sharp films: "Blackboard Jungle", "Elmer Gantry", "In Cold Blood" and one I like that many don't, "Lord Jim". He was also a tough dude; I once read that he sat Burt Lancaster on his backside after an argument turned physical.The story of "Crossfire", which takes place in New York just after World War Two, begins with the murder of a man, Joseph Samuels played by Sam Levene. A pipe-smoking policeman, Captain Finlay, played by Robert Young, investigates the crime. Young's performance is a precursor to the sage characters he later brought to full flower in television's "Father Knows Best" and "Marcus Welby MD".A number of soldiers were in the murdered man's apartment just prior to his slaying. Robert Ryan gave an acclaimed performance in this film as Montgomery, one of the soldiers in question. Big, sneering and manipulative, he invests the part with a nastiness that is palpable.At first, suspicion falls on another soldier, Mitchell. As part of the investigation, Captain Finlay calls in Sergeant Keeley, Robert Mitchum's character. Keeley tries to protect Mitchell, even arranging for Mitchell's wife to come to town.During a flashback, the film follows Mitchell on the night of the murder where he encounters some unusual characters including Ginny (Gloria Graham), a depressed dancehall "hostess". Eventually, he ends up at Ginny's apartment. Here he encounters a man, listed in the end credits as "The man", played by Paul Kelly; an unusual performance, his character emerges as forlorn, slightly twisted and possibly dangerous – adding another intriguing layer to this unusual story. The film ends abruptly, and conforms to conventions of the period, which allowed no crime to go unpunished. Montgomery is revealed as the murderer and although unarmed, is shot in the back by Captain Finlay in an almost matter-of-fact manner – showing that codes of conduct can change over 60 years. The budget limitations work in the film's favour with much of the story set at night to disguise the studio sets. The end result was a shadowy, claustrophobic world that was perfect for the telling of its taut tale.