Crossfire

Year: 1947

Grade: B

Country: USA

Director: Dmytryk

Review

roberts young, ryan and mitchum head up the cast and edward dmytryk does the direction. it’s a good film, but i was a bit surprised to see it nominated for five academy awards. i think there are two reasons for this (the nominations, not my surprise): it’s a picture that’s friendly to the academy (the anti-hate [especially towards jews] agenda and the story revolves around soldiers in the recent post-war era); and it seems to be a kind of a weak year (1947). granted, i haven’t seen bishop’s wife or gentleman’s agreement which had five and eight nominations respectively, but it still doesn’t look like that strong of a year to me.

robert ryan has the toughest role and he does a good job with it. he plays a two-faced anti-semite who is affable one moment and hateful the next.

overall a good mystery with a really good script, good acting and a larger meaning that is timeless.