What sets this film apart from other film noirs of its era is the subject of anti-Semitism. When a stranger encounters a group of servicemen in a bar shortly after the end of World War Two and then winds up dead, the detective on the case, masterfully played by Robert Young, is initially puzzled by the apparent lack of any motive for the stranger's killing. Gradually it dawns on him that the motive is pure hatred and bigotry; he explains: "The motive had to be inside the killer himself. Something he brought with him. Something he'd been nursing, for a long time. Something that had been waiting. The killer had to be someone who could hate Samuels without knowing him. Who could hate him enough to kill him, under the right circumstances, not for any real reason, but mistakenly and ignorantly."
In trying to enlist the cooperation of a reluctant soldier who is a friend of the villain, the detective explains what happened to his grandfather for being Irish Catholic: "When he left the bar, two men followed him with empty whisky bottles. They didn't mean to kill him. They were just going to rough him up a little. They didn't start out to kill, they just started out hating. The way Monty started out. But 20 minutes later, my grandfather was dead. That's history, Leroy. They don't teach it in school, but it's real American history just the same. Thomas Finlay was killed in 1848 just because he was an Irishman and a Catholic. It happened many times. Maybe that's hard for you to believe, Leroy, but it's true. And last night, Joseph Samuels was killed just because he was a Jew."
"Crossfire" was nominated for five Academy Awards, including best picture, but it lost out for best picture to another anti-Semitism film, "Gentlemen's Agreement". Many critics think "Crossfire" was more deserving.
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