Crossfire

Cradle Of Fear.

A man by the name of Joseph Samuels is found brutally murdered in his apartment. It would appear that Samuels was visited by a group of drunken soldiers the previous evening, and with one of them seemingly missing, the evidence certainly implicates the missing soldier. But as detective Finlay digs deeper into the case he finds that they could be barking up the wrong tree, and that this crime is dealing with something desperately sad and vile - anti-Semitism.

Crossfire was born out of the novel written by Richard Brooks, adapted by John Paxton and directed by the shrewdly excellent Edward Dmtryk. Crossfire (originaly titled "Cradle Of Fear") is a taut and gripping picture that boldly tackles anti-Semitism. Though the ma...

When a man is found savagely beaten to death, it falls to local police captain "Finlay" (Robert Young) to track down the perpetrators. His attention is soon drawn to a group of recently demobbed soldiers who had had drinks with the deceased and his girlfriend (Marlo Dwyer) earlier that evening. Meantime, conscious that his friends are in the police line of sight,"Kelley" (Robert Mitchum) also decides to do a bit of detective work - hoping to clear his colleagues, identify the killer and hopefully establish a motive too. It's a quickly paced, quite intricate thriller this. Both Young and Mitchum are effective, as are Robert Ryan's manipulative "Monty" and George Cooper's rather dubious looking "Mitch". There are plenty of undercurrents withi...