Crossfire

Dark, anonymous city streets and drab interiors reinforce the psychic distance that separates the characters — and human beings, generally — in Edward Dmytryk’s Crossfire, a postwar meditation on the hate that sat at the heart of World War II. That hate is gloriously embodied in the form of Robert Ryan, who plays the slowly tightening Montgomery, a belligerent, anti-Semitic soldier on leave who was one of several drunk buddies in the apartment of Joseph Samuels (Sam Levene), a friendly Jew they’d met at a local bar, at the time he was beaten to death. With Montgomery bouncing between anger and fear, the murder warrants two separate investigations, one led by police inspector Finlay (Robert Young), the other led by Sgt. Peter Keeley (Robert Mitchum) who hopes to clear the name of his friend Mitchell (George Cooper). Gloria Grahame shines in an Oscar-nominated performance as Ginny, another potential witness, while Steve Brodie broods as the sensitive artist Floyd. Dmytryk and Hunt create several dazzling sequences, beginning with the beating shadowed against the wall like a nasty Plato’s cave, and culminating in a final chase up darkened stairwells and down moonlit streets, low angles and high angles alternating for maximum disorientation. Note: The Production Code forced the homosexual victim of the novel to be changed to a Jew targeted by antisemitism.