495:...tellingly produced and played to develop tight excitement...The playing and direction catch plot aims and the characterizations are all topflight thesping. Heflin and Ryan deliver punchy performances that give substance to the menacing terror...It's grim business, unrelieved by lightness, and the players belt over their assignments under Zinnemann's knowing direction. Janet Leigh points up her role as Heflin's worried but courageous wife, while Phyllis Thaxter does well by a smaller part as Ryan's girl. A standout is the brassy, blowzy femme created by Mary Astor—a woman of the streets who gives Heflin shelter during his wild flight from fate."
481:, emphasized that it was a director's "tour de force. For this latter asset of the picture, we have Mr. Zinnemann to thank. He has pictured, at least, a visual setting for terror and violence and he has kept the pursued and the pursuer going at a grueling pace. In the former role, Van Heflin strains and sweats impressively. As his relentless pursuer, Robert Ryan is infernally taut. Mr. Zinnemann has also extracted a tortured performance from Janet Leigh as the fearful, confused and disillusioned wife of the hunted man and he has got squalid portraits of scoundrels from Mary Astor, Berry Kroeger and Taylor Holmes."
510:...with a profundity, through its unsettling moral continuum, redolent not of Hollywood simplicities of good/evil but of the art one associates with Zinnemann's European background. This contains a clue. Fred and his brother escaped their native Austria in 1938, but their parents, waiting for U.S. visas that never came, perished—separately—in concentration camps. The '
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to grab Johnny as he speeds off in his car, causing it to crash into a lamppost, killing Johnny. Frank falls into the street near the fiery crash and dies. Joe, realizing what Frank has done, kneels by his old captain and tells the surrounding crowd that he will be the one to tell Frank's wife about her husband's death.
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Waking from his drunken binge, Frank regrets the deal. He goes home and tries to persuade Edith that it is all over. While she is seeing to their child, he leaves and goes to the station to warn Joe. Johnny is waiting with a gun, but as he fires, Frank jumps in front of Joe and is hit. Frank manages
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Doggedly pursued by Joe, Frank goes to a trade convention at a Los
Angeles hotel. Edith shows up to hear the truth straight from her husband, before fleeing back home. Joe finds Frank and they scuffle. Frank runs through downtown Los Angeles and ends up on Skid Row, where he is picked up in a bar by
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where comrades were murdered by guards during an escape attempt, Frank Enley is respected for his fine character and good works in the small
California town of Santa Lisa, where he, his young wife Edith and baby had settled after moving from the East. What his wife does not know is that Frank moved
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Frank has a nemesis, Joe
Parkson, once his best friend, who lived through the ordeal and was left with a crippled leg. Unable to convince Joe not to make an escape attempt, Frank had alerted the SS Nazi camp commander to the prisoners' plan, taking the camp commandant at his word that he would "go
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easy" on the men. The prisoners were bayonetted and left to die, and only Joe survived by playing dead. Joe is now determined to exact justice on Frank, whose location he has learned from a newspaper story commending Enley for his civic endeavors.
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Joe's girlfriend, Ann
Sturgess, knows everything about her man, but cannot dissuade him from his passion to right past wrongs by seeing Frank dead. Joe confronts Edith at their house and tells her the truth about Frank.
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a woman, Pat, who introduces him to a shady lawyer, Gavery, and a thug for hire, Johnny. A drunken Frank gives Johnny the information he needs to lure Joe into an ambush at the Santa Lisa train station.
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Originally adapted from unpublished story by
Collier Young, before he embarked on a career as an independent producer with his future wife
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took place from May 17 to mid-July 1948, with added scenes shot in late August 1948. Location shooting included scenes at
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in Culver City. Some of the nighttime city scenes were shot in the slum neighborhoods of Los
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earned $ 703,000 in the US and Canada and $ 426,000 overseas, resulting in a loss of $ 637,000.
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was the first film in which he felt he had full control of all the aspects of film-making.
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a positive review, writing "The grim melodrama implied by its title is fully displayed in
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Currently, it holds a 90% "Fresh" rating on Rotten
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them in an attempt to escape the fall-out from events in that WWII prison camp.
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Fred
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708:. December 21, 1948, p. 6. Retrieved: September 17, 2022.
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Margaret
Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study
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was to be the star, but when MGM picked up the rights,
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in the leading roles. Robert Ryan was lent to MGM by
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631:"Original print information: 'Act of Violence'."
498:Film reviewer Roger Westcombe, writing for the
670:Muller, Eddie (January 27, 2019) Intro to the
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693:, January 24, 1949. Retrieved: May 7, 2016.
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404:, California, accompanied by filming at the
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751:"Festival de Cannes: 'Act of Violence'."
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1228:Films shot in Big Bear Lake, California
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1253:English-language crime drama films
615:"Film review: 'Act of Violence'."
595:. Overlook Duckworth. p. 25.
450:Director Fred Zinnemann said that
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719:"Film review: 'Act of Violence'."
703:"Film review: 'Act of Violence'."
1213:Films directed by Fred Zinnemann
652:. Retrieved: September 17, 2022.
636:. Retrieved: September 17, 2022.
21:Act of Violence (disambiguation)
1218:Films scored by Bronisław Kaper
724:,'2008. Retrieved: May 7, 2016.
1188:American black-and-white films
647:"Articles: 'Act of Violence'."
402:San Bernardino National Forest
1:
1243:1940s English-language films
1208:American films about revenge
806:AFI Catalog of Feature Films
621:, December 25, 1948, p. 206.
561:AFI Catalog of Feature Films
518:can only start to expiate."
274:. Adapted for the screen by
593:Film Noir: The Encyclopedia
577:"The Eddie Mannix Ledger."
16:1948 film by Fred Zinnemann
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1198:American crime drama films
984:My Brother Talks to Horses
462:According to MGM records,
174:January 22, 1949
18:
1233:Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
1054:The Member of the Wedding
897:
776:Jarlett, Franklin (1997)
763:. Retrieved: May 7, 2016.
531:1949 Cannes Film Festival
477:, reviewing the film for
392:Principal photography on
40:Theatrical release poster
33:
756:October 3, 2009, at the
1223:Films set in California
914:That Mothers Might Live
506:unsettling, and wrote "
294:After surviving a Nazi
1183:1949 crime drama films
722:Big House Film Society
591:Silver, Alain (2010).
500:Big House Film Society
423:was to be paired with
1134:The Day of the Jackal
1124:A Man for All Seasons
1064:From Here to Eternity
672:Turner Classic Movies
650:Turner Classic Movies
634:Turner Classic Movies
266:. It was produced by
1248:1940s American films
1193:American chase films
1154:Five Days One Summer
661:Jarlett 1997, p. 32.
444:Return of the Badmen
431:for the production.
182: (New York City)
19:For other uses, see
1114:Behold a Pale Horse
761:festival-cannes.com
272:Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
238:is a 1949 American
149:Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
889:Films directed by
840:TCM Movie Database
717:Westcombe, Roger.
691:The New York Times
686:Crowther, Bosley.
618:Harrison's Reports
479:The New York Times
276:Robert L. Richards
60:Robert L. Richards
1238:1940s chase films
1165:
1164:
974:Little Mister Jim
964:The Seventh Cross
954:Eyes in the Night
934:Forbidden Passage
786:978-0-7864-0476-6
525:Awards and honors
470:Critical response
328:as Frank R. Enley
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79:William H. Wright
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242:directed by
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191:Running time
167:Release date
674:showing of
417:Howard Duff
406:MGM Studios
380:Will Wright
338:Janet Leigh
332:Robert Ryan
256:Janet Leigh
252:Robert Ryan
227:$ 1,129,000
219:$ 1,290,000
160:Loew's Inc.
101:Janet Leigh
96:Robert Ryan
76:Produced by
46:Directed by
1178:1949 films
1172:Categories
994:The Search
541:References
413:Ida Lupino
388:Production
344:Mary Astor
326:Van Heflin
260:Mary Astor
248:Van Heflin
224:Box office
195:82 minutes
178:1949-01-22
141:Production
91:Van Heflin
1203:Film noir
1074:Oklahoma!
1044:High Noon
458:Reception
364:as Gavery
358:as Johnny
286:veterans.
268:Hollywood
240:film noir
120:Edited by
829:AllMovie
754:Archived
400:and the
296:POW camp
208:Language
130:Music by
84:Starring
66:Story by
1014:The Men
924:Stuffie
854:YouTube
838:at the
803:at the
706:Variety
558:at the
485:Variety
270:studio
211:English
200:Country
176: (
143:company
1157:(1982)
1147:(1977)
1137:(1973)
1127:(1966)
1117:(1964)
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1077:(1955)
1067:(1953)
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1034:Teresa
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937:(1941)
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907:(1936)
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382:as Pop
346:as Pat
216:Budget
1144:Julia
1024:Benjy
904:Redes
487:gave
818:IMDb
782:ISBN
597:ISBN
441:and
319:Cast
290:Plot
262:and
852:on
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