Edward Dmytryk was fired by RKO in 1947 for his alleged Communist sympathies and became one of the Hollywood Ten jailed for contempt of Congress. In late 1950 he agreed to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and he returned to directing in 1952. Film historian Georges Sadoul notes that Dmytryk was “one of the best postwar Hollywood directors,” but since 1952, Sadoul writes, he has “become a prolific director of relatively uninteresting commercial films--though some of them betray a certain uneasiness.” The comparison of a director's early, low-budget courage and later commercial successes is a familiar one; in the case of Dmytryk, it carries an extra charge.

Crossfire is renowned as the brave liberal film of the Forties--the first to suggest the existence of anti-Semitism in the U.S. It is considered far superior to the much more generously budgeted Gentleman's Agreement, released the same year, for focusing on the roots of anti-Semitism where the latter film preached its cure, and for holding up over time as a well crafted, finely textured film noir. Robert Ryan gives an excellent performance as a deceptively soft-spoken psychopath who kills a Jewish soldier in a drunken rage. The story--revolving around the search for the killer and, more importantly, for a motive--is made hauntingly compelling by the excellent ensemble acting of the cast--including Robert Mitchum, Robert Young and Gloria Graham--and Dmytryk's taut direction in a milieu of seedy military bars and downtown hotels in the midnight hours. As an indication of the progress of liberalism in Hollywood in 1947, it is interesting to note that in the novel on which the film was based the murder victim is not a Jew but a homosexual.