Crossfire

Crossfire (1947)

Hate is like a loaded gun!

A man is murdered, apparently by one of a group of soldiers just out of the army. But which one? And why?

Date of release
1947-08-15
TMDB
6.7 / 10 (170)
Runtime
1h 26m
Genres
Crime, Mystery
Director
Edward Dmytryk

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Awards: 1 · Nominations: 5. Including: National Board of Review: Top Ten Films

Crossfire is a 1947 American crime film noir directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Gloria Grahame and Sam Levene. It is based on the 1945 novel The Brick Foxhole by the future film director Richard Brooks. The plot concerns a murder investigation among a group of demobilized military personnel, where antisemitism is a motivating factor.

Production

This was a prestige picture during Dore Schary's brief tenure as Head of Production at RKO. The film's screenplay, written by John Paxton, was based on director and screenwriter Richard Brooks' 1945 novel The Brick Foxhole. Brooks wrote his novel while he was a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps making training films at Quantico, Virginia, and Camp Pendleton, California.

In the novel, the victim Joseph Samuels was a homosexual. As told in the film The Celluloid Closet, and in the documentary included on the DVD and the 2021 Warner Archive Collection Blu-ray edition of the Crossfire film, the Hollywood Hays Code prohibited any mention of homosexuality because it was seen as a sexual perversion. Hence, the book's theme of homophobia was changed to one about racism and antisemitism.

The book was published while Brooks was serving in the Marine Corps. A fellow Marine, the politically-active actor Robert Ryan, met Brooks and told him he was determined to play in a version of the book on screen.

The film was shot entirely at the RKO studio backlot in Los Angeles, over 24 days. During filming, the working title was Cradle of Fear.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

Recommended