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The Sniper is an interesting combination of "classical" social problem film and film noir. The film expresses the widespread concern over problems of the male psyche in transition from war to civilian life. This issue is embedded in the story of an ex-GI, a pattern criminal whose irrational anger is directed against women. The antihero, product of a damaged childhood and the emotional stress of the war, returns to a society in which he seems to have no secure place and nowhere to turn in dealing with his emotional turmoil. His distress is intensified by the women of the story, professionally and personally emancipated through Depression and war. Producer Stanley Kramer and director Dmytryk take pains to explain the etiology of the social problem, inserting a "liberal" police psychologist/profiler who campaigns for understanding and rehabilitation, but the instability of the antihero and his reservoir of gynephobic violence evokes a darker, irrational and uncontrollable sense of existence not dispelled by the confidence and pragmatism of the film's overt social message. The Sniper is also remarkable for its casual yet detailed depiction of a postwar working-class San Francisco, indelibly rendered by Burnett Guffey's cinematography.