Directed by Edward Dmytryk
Brook’s source novel The Brick Foxhole, about stateside servicemen in wartime waiting to be deployed (he had been one), underwent changes in John Paxton’s screen adaptation which replaced the novel’s homophobic violence with anti-Semitism, as a detective and an officer ferret out a bad-apple enlisted man. The change softens Brooks’ astute observation of masculinity straining without a proper proving ground, but the result is still a terrific thriller. Bad girl Gloria Grahame shines in a supporting role as a key witness who helps get an innocent man off the hook.
RKO. Based on the novel The Brick Foxhole by Richard Brooks. Producer: Adrian Scott. Screenwriter: John Paxton. Cinematographer: J. Roy Hunt. Editor: Harry Gerstad. Cast: Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Gloria Grahame, Sam Levene. 35mm, Black and White, 86 min.
