martinsantos
Practically Family
- Messages
- 595
- Location
- São Paulo, Brazil
I saw this years ago... Very impressive, as always Dmytryk do. And agree about Mitchum. He always looked well when at dark roles...
When I saw this film I didn't know "Father Knows Best". I didn't imagine Young in this kind of role!
When I saw this film I didn't know "Father Knows Best". I didn't imagine Young in this kind of role!
Saw Crossfire a couple of days ago. Very well photographed, with close to superb lighting. Robert Ryan was powerful in the role of the bigot ex-serviceman who kills a Jew while in a drunken stupor. It was also good to see Robert Young in a low-key role that was none-the-less very different from his Father Knows Best typecast. I think that the film would have been better, though, if Mitchum has played the part of the GI falsely accused of the killing, especially if the role had been beefed up. As it was, while he had plenty of dialogue, his character really had nothing to do with the actual setting up and trapping of Ryan at the end. The opening scene, which actually shows the murder, was very well executed with low-angle camera shots, as well as shadows cast upon a wall. Director Dmytryk said in an interview that the low-lighting was the result of budget constraints, a factor very common in Films Noir. It was also clever not to show Ryan's face in the murder scene, so that as the film progresses, the audience is "allowed" to figure out who the culprit is, just before his identitiy is revealed about half-way through.
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