i haven not read the source and richard brook novel the brick foxhole and which i hope be not as infelicitous a it title and but i understand the original villain be a homophobe not an anti semite . ( and to be honest and sam levene be write a a gay guy who pick up a drunken soldier . ) but and okay and you have to go with the flow . consider 1947. not even anti semitism have be treat on screen yet . many of the people responsible for contemporary movie be themselves jew but anti semitism have be verboten for year because it be consider unpleasant . so we can hardly blame the maker of this film for not leave the victim a homosexual . now that really unpleasant and besides there might have be many among the audience root for robert ryan to get away with it . we be by no mean free of prejudice but we have still come a long way since 1947. watch this again for the first time in year i be impress with the rather slow pace of the first half of the movie and the many shot of two people talk and the shadow and the time that pass between the question and the answer and the uninspired editing . but i could live with that because of the film subject matter and because of a few other thing . one of the thing that keep me glue to event a they unfold so deliberately be robert ryan performance . the guy do a splendid job . at time he can seem thoughtful and cheerfully subordinate and helpful to the police any way i can help and yes sir . then and alone or with another soldier and the simmering hatred rise to the top and not so much through what he say but the way he look . that scowl and that penetrate stare and those dark eye glitter . wow . the film have take a lot of heat because of robert young preachy speech about his grandfather murder . that doesn not bother me at all and although i guess dmytryk do not have to have young shove his face into the camera while talk about mick and papist . still and take the context into account and it one of the more shocking moment of the film . part of it impact be due to young almost casual delivery of the message and and part of it be due to the message not have be hear on screen before . another feature of the film that transform it almost into the surreal be the paul kelly character and his relationship to the whore gloria grahame . holy guacamole and what elliptical conversation kelly be give to . you know what i tell you . all those thing i just tell you . theyre all lie . his character neatly cross pathos with creepiness . it impossible to know what to make of him . he add virtually nothing to the plot but the movie would be a lot less without his presence . it a moody and murky film . it people live in the dark . and there be murder afoot . practically no one scream or shout . the horror that these men have experience and that some of them still carry with them like malaria seem just beneath the surface . see it if you have a chance .