Crossfire

Piggybacking on a retrospective that Film Forum is running on the actor Robert Ryan, I thought I'd take a look at some of his available films on DVD. Ryan, who died in 1973, was a tall, hard-nosed actor who played mostly tough guys, and often played the kind of guy who was his direct opposite--racists.

I've written about three of his films on this blog before: Clash By Night, Bad Day at Black Rock, and The Professionals. His breakthrough role, and his only Oscar nomination, came for 1947's Crossfire, directed by Edward Dmytryk.

Crossfire was also nominated for Best Picture, which meant that two-fifths of that year's nominees were directly about anti-Semitism. While the winning picture, Gentleman's Agreement, was far more subtle and complex, suggesting that even well-meaning people had disturbing attitudes, Crossfire is blunter and preachier. It's also disguised as a noir murder mystery, though there's not much obfuscation about who the killer is--he's revealed about halfway through.

As the film begins, a man is beaten to death. This is shown only in shadows, a noir technique, but Dmytryk revealed that he did it to save money. The murdered man was a Jew, and detective Robert Young finds the wallet of a G.I. in the sofa. His buddy, Ryan, comes by the murder scene looking for him. In trying to track down this G.I., Young questions his best friend, Robert Mitchum, who flatly states his buddy would never kill anyone, and decides to conduct his own investigation.

The film is not a true noir, mainly because it has the interesting aspect of not having a protagonist. Neither Young nor Mitchum command the stage long enough to be a true lead, and both disappear for large chunks of the film. Ryan is more dominant as the antagonist, whose ugly attitudes about Jews (he suggests that they all evaded service, though the murdered man, unbeknownst to him, was wounded at Guadalcanal) throw a shadow over the entire film.

The film works as a thriller, but not overwhelmingly so. It has more appeal today as a social message film, particularly for Young's big speech at the end, when he compares his grandfather's experience as an Irish immigrant to the evils of anti-Semitism. In a line that would not gain approval from the NRA, he says that people can't carry guns because they're dangerous, and "hate is like a gun." Young isn't so down on guns that he shoots the unarmed killer in the back, though.

Though the film is quaint, it has some nice brittle performances, particularly by Ryan and Gloria Grahame, who was also Oscar-nominated. She plays a good-time girl with a chip on her shoulder, and there's a bizarre scene with a man who may or may not be her husband.