CROSSFIRE

Crossfire is a classic film noir from the second it starts. Premiering the same year as Gentleman’s Agreement, both films are among Hollywood’s first to deal with anti-Semitism, though this one much less apologetically. It is a B picture that features some A-list actors. Headed by three Roberts (Mitchum, Young, and Ryan), the movie sets out to solve the murder of a Jewish guest in a hotel where several GIs have been frequenting, and who are among the prime suspects. Gloria Grahame (a personal favorite) turns in an Oscar-nominated performance as well.

Capt. Finley (Young) drives the hard lesson home, “That’s history Leroy. They don’t teach it in school, but it’s real American history just the same.” “Hating is always the same, always senseless. One day it kills Irish Catholics, the next day Jews, the next day Protestants, the next day Quakers. It’s hard to stop. It can end up killing men who wear striped neckties. Or people from Tennessee.”

Sadly, it seems an American lesson we haven’t learned from as some Americans still set out to spread hatred. The old targets are sadly being joined by transgender people, Muslims, and others some sixty years since this movie was made. As an interesting side note, the book that this movie is based upon (The Brick Foxhole) featured the murder of a homosexual, not a Jew. The Hay’s Codes of the era wouldn’t allow for a movie about homophobia, so the victim was changed to a Jew, and the bigotry repackaged as anti-Semitism.