Encrucijada de odios

Definitely a "must see" for all fans of film noir.

Thanks to a fine script and crisp, razor sharp direction, a top cast comes together and works like a well oiled clock to produce a crackerjack psychological thriller. Wonderful characterizations articulate the movie's powerful message about the dangers of racial and religious intolerance.

It's difficult and almost unjust to single out any one, particular performance because there isn't a weak link in the entire company. But Robert Ryan as the hateful and violent white supremacist is truly spine chilling.

Making this film in the 1940s would have taken a lot of courage. Now,all these years later, at a time when contemporary movies are dominated by a ridiculous over abundance of foul language, bare breasts, crummy acting and deafening soundtracks, it's refreshing to get back to the basics of quality film making with a viewing treat like "Crossfire".

Another low budget gem from the Hollywood archives .

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")

Note: On 23 May 2023, I saw this film again.

'Crossfire' is a very interesting movie. It begins like a murder mystery, but it becomes obvious very quickly who the murderer is, and the plot becomes more concerned with his motive. And it is his motive which makes the movie so interesting. 'Crossfire' is a "message" movie but it is also a cracking good drama, and that's what I enjoyed about it. Plus the cast is dynamite - Roberts Preston, Mitchum and Ryan, and the beautiful Gloria Grahame ('In A Lonely Place'). Mitchum doesn't have a big a role as you might expect (the movie was released the same year as 'Out Of The Past' in which he gives a much more substantial performance), but he's always great to watch, and Robert Ryan ('The Wild Bunch') steals the movie as a very nasty piece of work. I find many 1940s romance and comedy movies to be too corny for my taste, but the crime movies are much more to my liking. They are usually grittier and more realistic, and 'Crossfire' is a great example of this. Highly recommended.

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.

"Crossfire" feels like an underdeveloped masterpiece -- it's well acted and beautifully filmed, but thinly written and way too short. As is, it's just a decent police procedural with hints of film noir (at its zenith in 1947) and social commentary (also trendy at the time) thrown in for good measure. It's remembered today as one of the first two Hollywood films to deal with anti-Semitism, and as being much better than the similarly-themed "Gentleman's Agreement" (no mean feat). But its real subject is the difficulty that WWII soldiers, as trained killers, were having as they made the transition to civilian life. (For a more genteel take on this topic, try "The Best Years Of Our Lives.") A man is beaten to death in the first few frames of the film. We do not see his attacker. The movie is about the investigation of this murder, which is actually pretty straightforward, but it takes some unnecessary detours, like when the main suspect, a depressed soldier, winds up in the apartment of Gloria Grahame, a dance-hall hooker with a really weird pimp played by Paul Kelly. There's also a civics lecture halfway through the movie that slows the proceedings to a crawl, and the ending is tidy enough for a cop show. But otherwise it's a pretty decent mystery. Still, what a great noir it could have been. Director Edward Dmytryk drops a few hints at the subject of the original novel -- homosexuality, not anti-Semitism -- like when sadistic creep Monty seethes at the image of his friend Mitch talking with a strange man at a bar. And the cast is excellent. Robert Ryan makes for a very credible cretin, and even becomes a little sympathetic in his final scenes, not unlike Peter Lorre as the child murderer in "M." He deserved an Oscar but lost to Edmund Gwenn that year (you can't beat Santa Claus). Robert Mitchum is onhand as a soldier friend of the accused killer. Was Mitchum a great actor or a great star? Someone else can figure that out, but his sleepy eyes and bemused half-smile work very well here since they imply that his character knows something everyone else doesn't. (And he does.) And Robert Young, as the detective assigned to the murder, is surprisingly gritty, discarding his usual avuncular affability even when he has to deliver the civil-rights sermon midway through the picture. There's no question that Bogart or Tracy would have been brilliant in the role, but neither of them were at RKO in 1947 so you'll just have to deal with Dr. Welby. Still, Young is good enough to make you wish someone had cast him in a detective drama instead of "Father Knows Best," which he hated and which drove him to alcoholism and suicide attempts. The man deserved better than smarm and Sanka.