Feux croisés

'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.

'Film Noir' is a much-used (and misused), catch phrase, coined to describe

Hollywood films of the forties and fifties. These films were invariable in black and white (hence the paucity of such films on Australian commercial TV), and shot on tiny budgets in a matter of a few weeks. The plots are generally formulaic. Someone is murdered, someone else will be framed for that murder, and a

'dame' figures somewhere in the proceedings. "Crossfire" is low budget, and shot in black & white: admirably so by J. Roy Hunt. And yes, there's a 'dame' involved. What sets "Crossfire" apart from most of the other films of that era, is that it's not just another murder mystery, however well executed. This is a film about

religious intolerance. That people are killed is but the flesh on the bones of a film about (without preaching), racial vilification. The director, Edward Dmytryk was a fine, and now, a sadly neglected director. He knew how to work within the confines of the studio system, and turn out a

quality film like "Crossfire" The original thrust of the films' message, was, apparently, about homophobia. This upset the Hays Office. and religious

persecution was substituted instead. There is not a wasted frame in this picture. It runs a taught 86 minutes. For my money, Robert Young, who plays the detective charged with solving who

murdered whom, and why, is a standout. This in face of an understated Robert

Mitcham, and a powerful performance by Robert Ryan as the psychotic

Montgomery - think of his role as Claggart, in the film "Billy Budd". Believe me when I say that it was truly refreshing to see a film (thank god for late night TV), where the actors can act, the dialogue is intelligent, and where

computer graphics and special effects were not used as a substitute for plot

Edward Dmytryk directed this shadowy movie about a murder investigation involving demobilized military personnel. Robert Young gets to lecture us about hatred, Robert Mitchum walks through most of this picture, and Gloria Grahame revisits the feistiness she exhibited in "It's A Wonderful Life." It's Robert Ryan who gets at the heart of the matter: anti-semiticism. He goes so deep into his role as Monty Montgomery (Imagine parents named Lawrence calling their son Larry!), that the drama sits squarely on his shoulders, and he is more than up to the challenge. Without him, the movie would be commonplace. Ryan has played a number of memorable villains in his day ("Bad Day at Black Rock;" "Billy Budd"), but this performance put him on the map. With Sam Levene as the murder victim.

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 .

Unlike most film noir, Edward Dmytryk's Crossfire, adapted from a novel by Richard Brooks, is not nearly as concerned with its murder mystery, which, at first sight, might seem superficially formulaic to the casual viewer, as it is with the complex motives of its characters and the oppressive ambience of its accurately rendered post-WWII setting, evoking feelings of disorientation, loneliness and entrapment. Under its classic noir exterior, it is about hardened and aloof veterans' struggle with postwar reintegration, utterly unable or unwilling to put their traumatic experiences behind them, and about their desperate attempt to redefine their goals. For those who define themselves by who their enemies are, such as hateful loner Montgomery (the brilliant Robert Ryan), this necessitates establishing a new one, a role filled here by Jewish intellectual Joseph Samuels (Sam Levene), who becomes the regrettable victim of a senseless hate crime.

At first the film appears to simply be going through the motions: After the ambiguously shot opening murder scene all evidence points, for reasons I cannot presently remember, to Corporal Arthur Mitchell (George Cooper). Captain Finley (Robert Young) investigates and is soon joined by the idealistic Sergeant Peter Keeley (Robert Mitchum), who is certain of Mitchell's innocence. Two minor military characters, Floyd Bowers (Steve Brodie) and Bill Williams (Richard Benedict) are also somehow involved. Monty murders the former, while the latter, after a stern, Hugh Beaumontesque talking-to, reluctantly aids Finley and Keeley in setting a trap for the dastardly ne'er-do-well. Or perhaps it was the other way around -- I watch so many movies that Bowers and Williams might as well have been stranded in the South Seas and mistaken for Gods by the natives. Or, possibly, they have to spend a night in a haunted house before they can claim their inheritance, where they find a monkey that can play baseball and helps the local team win some games. At any rate, there's also the obligatory femme fatale Ginny Tremaine (Gloria Grahame) and a compulsive liar (Paul Kelly, delivering a wonderful performance) who might or might not be her husband, and exists mostly for local color and comic relief.

However, the real meat of the piece is the complex characterization of the veteran archetypes. Mitchell, for instance, suffers from a classic case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (often also referred to as `shell shock,' `war neurosis' or `combat stress') and, like many suffering from this condition, is taunted and branded as a coward by his fellows. He has become utterly self-loathing and fears the return to normalcy. The scene in which is wife finally gets him to confront these fears and enables him to return to her (and his art) is one of the film's many highlights. Then there's Peter Keeley, perhaps the most positive military archetype on display here: the natural born leader. He is extremely charismatic and persuasive, has great concern and compassion for his fellow soldiers, and manages to bring out these qualities in others. It is Keeley's considerable understanding of both human nature and his compatriots' dilemma that makes him so valuable to Captain Finley, the only other character of equivalent moral fiber. Their polar counterpart is Montgomery, a sadistic, racist bully who vents his frustrations by mocking and humiliating his fellow men. Left without an enemy, he creates elaborate rationalizations to justify his hate for a substitute. This really could be the member of any marginally different group (in the novel, I am told, the victim is a homosexual), but in this case it happens to be a Jew. While one's initial reaction might be that Montgomery obviously fought on the wrong side during the war, it is important to remember that, at the time, anti-Semitism was far from limited to Nazi Germany. Indeed, after World War One, the financial and societal crisis of the Great Depression caused anti-Semitism to reach its zenith, and violent attacks on Jews were quite commonplace in many major cities. Later, the U.S. refused entry to countless German-Jewish refugees, interpreted by Hitler as a clear sign of approval for his Final Solution.

Still, as Captain Finley correctly points out, practically anyone would have done as a victim for someone like Montgomery.