| Act of Violence | |
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Theatrical poster |
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| Directed by | Fred Zinnemann |
| Produced by | William H. Wright |
| Written by | Story: Collier Young Screenplay: Robert L. Richards |
| Starring | Van Heflin Robert Ryan Janet Leigh |
| Music by | Bronislau Kaper |
| Cinematography | Robert Surtees |
| Editing by | Conrad A. Nervig |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Release date(s) | December 21, 1948 (United States) |
| Running time | 82 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Act of Violence is a 1948 film noir directed by Fred Zinnemann and adapted for the screen by Robert L. Richards from a story by Collier Young, featuring performances by Van Heflin, Robert Ryan, and Janet Leigh.[1][2]
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Frank Enley (Van Heflin), returns home from World War II after surviving a German POW camp where the rest of his comrades were murdered. The "war hero" is respected and praised for his fine character and good works in the California community of Santa Lisa. What he does not know is that Joe Parkson (Robert Ryan), once his best friend, also lived through the ordeal, though he was left with a crippled leg. Frank helped their captors in exchange for food, and Joe is determined to exact justice.
Frank's wife Edith (Janet Leigh) is completely in the dark about his transgressions, while Joe's girlfriend knows everything about her man, but cannot dissuade him from his passion to set past wrongs right by seeing Frank dead. Frank must confront his dark past and the truth that he is a coward, not a hero.
Doggedly pursued by Joe, Frank goes into hiding, leaving his confused wife behind. He enlists the aid of a past-her-prime prostitute, Pat (Mary Astor), and a hitman, Johnny (Berry Kroeger).
Roger Westcombe, writing for the Big House Film Society, considers the film unsettling, and wrote, "Act of Violence... 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 "survivor guilt" this awful closing engendered must resemble the emotional see-saw ride which fiction like the ethical pendulum of Act of Violence can only start to expiate."[3]
The staff at Variety magazine liked the film and gave it a positive review. They wrote, "The grim melodrama implied by its title is fully displayed in Acts of Violence...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."[4]
The film was entered into the 1949 Cannes Film Festival.[5]
Currently, it holds a 100% "Fresh" rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 9 reviews.
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