Evening star., 1947-10-16

Is not a great picture, and its eftet
deals may be slight. but it Is brave.
and thoughtful, and greatly worthy.
1t is of incidental interest that the
screenplay which stars Robert
Young, Robert Mitchum and Robert
Ryan has Washington as it's back
ground.
Against this setting, it is unequiv-
ocal in its utterances Of the catch
words of religious and class hate,
the phrases dirty Irish mick"
Jew" and the several others which
At, sometimes too patty, into the
murderously grim narrative
Yet, while "Crossfire" has some
thing to say for which the screen
has heretofore lacked courage, 1t
does not forget entertainment en-
tirely. It has moments of genuine
hurnor to provide contrast for its
many more numerous and passion
ate passages of somber message.
Moreover, it is acted and directed
with intelligence and fervor by a!
group of f1lm-makers who were we'll
aware they were engaged upon a
highly special project here.
A novel by Richard Brooks,
adapted for the screen by John Pax
ton, provides the structure of Gross
fire"
The narrative opens with q mur-
der, brutal, shadowy killing in a
hotel room. The victim Is a kindly,
intelligent, racially wise Jew. His
murderer is soldier. one OF group
with whom the dead man fell into
conversation in hotel bar.
A series of flashbacks, composed
with an expert eye to dramatic
climb, discloses what led up to the
murder. Four characters are shaken
out Of the fabric of the narrative
to give the cameras focus on the
crossfire of hate with which it deals.
The busiest of these is Actor
Young in the role of a homicide
squad captain, The first clue on
which he works is that one of the
soldiers of the barroom tete-a -tete
Is missing. The missing man is an
artist, neurotic who has developed
"a case of snakes" at the prospect of
readjusting to civilian life, and es-
pecially to the marriage which he
left behind
Beyond these two, "Crosshre' is
principally concerned with a dis
illusioned sergeant (Mitchum who,
as former newspaperman, could
be useful to the police captain, if
he were not much more interested
in proving the missing buddy could
not commit murder.
The quartet is rounded out by an
ignorant, muscle-man soldier played
by Ryan.
It Is not disadvantageous to the
purpose of "Crossfire" that it per-
mits suspicion to be focused almost
at once upon the coarse and violent
character played by Ryan. The pic
ture might have been more drama
tically effective with more artful
concealment here, but it would not
have built up such a terrifying por-
trait of the type who represents
the savage danger In race, religious
and class hate.
In Young's search for the motive
which led to "Crossfire's" killing, it
Is quite possible that you will be
ahead of him all the way in seeing
= the overlap in Ryan's hatred and
killing instincts. But even this does
not rob the screenplay of too much
of It's excitement. There is still
the question of how the senseless
behemoth will be trapped in spite
Of his animal cunning.
The trapping, incidentally, is ac-
complished by neat trick which
also gives Young opportunity to
make a. starkly simple statement of
the theme with which the picture
deals.
The principal parts are not dis
similar from those In dozens of pre-
vious pictures of violence, but they
are given a new meaning in Gross
fire" As a result of this, they are
given a new depth of development.
Young's homicide squad captain is
wiser, more human, and more phil
osophic than such characters usu-
ally are. And, on the same level of
emphasis, Ryan injects a new ele-
ment of terror into the person of
the bare-fist killer, a senseless
human force turned loose upon a
society that is dumbly Indifferent
until it is too late
Mitchum's character. that of the
willy sergeant who fences humor-
ously with the police captain, is
also well turned, but the gem of the