Crossfire

Edward Dmytryk's film opens with a murder committed among a group of soldiers on leave. Montgomery, played by Robert Ryan, kills a Jewish civilian, and the only reason is hatred. Robert Young plays the detective and Robert Mitchum the sergeant who gets pulled into the investigation. The source is Richard Brooks's novel The Brick Foxhole, in which the murdered man is homosexual. The production code of the forties would never have allowed that on screen, so Dmytryk switched the subject to antisemitism and set it inside a noir frame. The film therefore carries the mark of the censor alongside its own nerve. Crossfire became the first Hollywood B picture nominated for Best Picture. It received five nominations and won nothing; that year the award went to Gentleman's Agreement, which took up the same subject. Shortly after release, Dmytryk and producer Adrian Scott appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee, refused to testify, and were blacklisted. Who it is for: viewers interested in noir and in Hollywood's first attempts at social subjects. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a fast procedural, since the film is largely made of interrogations.