Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 1947

The Contenders:

Boomerang
Crossfire
Gentleman’s Agreement
Great Expectations
Miracle on 34th Street (winner)

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1947

The Contenders:

The Bishop’s Wife
Crossfire
Gentleman’s Agreement (winner)
Great Expectations
Miracle on 34th Street

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Director 1947

The Contenders:

Henry Koster: The Bishop’s Wife
Edward Dmytryk: Crossfire
George Cukor: A Double Life
Elia Kazan: Gentleman’s Agreement (winner)
David Lean: Great Expectations

Foregone Conclusion

Film: Crossfire
Format: Streaming video from TCM Watch on laptop.

This might not be entirely accurate, but in a lot of ways, I think Crossfire is the oddest film I’ve seen in a long time. This is a film that is very much a film noir at its heart, but it ends on something like an up note. We know mid-way through the film exactly who the real bad guy is, and it’s the person we suspect in the first fifteen minutes. Once we know that, the second half of the film is more or less us watching the characters come to the conclusion we’ve reached, and the last 20 minutes or so are just seeing a set trap come together. And yet, for all of these oddities and (at least in my opinion) flaws in the script, Crossfire actually works pretty well.

It’s also, oddly enough, the second of the four Best Picture nominees from 1947 I’ve seen so far that deals overtly with anti-Semitism. Gentleman’s Agreement is all about anti-Semitism as well, although it’s of a much more genteel, “not in our club, dear” variety. Crossfire, as befits a film noir, is about murder and hatred. Curious that most of our characters are in the military, and one of them turns out to be the killer.