As an Army sergeant just released from duty, Robert Ryan creates a scary, thoroughly thought-out characterization, that of a man who has seen battle and killing but is now set free on the streets of America--with no agenda and nowhere to channel his pent-up rage. This "important picture", adapted from Richard Brooks' novel, deals with the police investigation into the beating death of a Jewish civilian, with soldiers as their suspects, yet Ryan's three-dimensional portrait of a man on the edge elevates the material beyond the crime genre. While sorting out the different scenarios which led to the innocent man's death, police captain Robert Young keeps a subdued, beleaguered head, which allows Ryan the room to go into his nervy Jekyll-and-Hyde arias. There isn't much suspense or surprise in the story, and one can't tell for sure if any was intended; Edward Dmytryk has directed the film in a brutal and straightforward fashion. The original theme of Brooks' story was homophobia but, that being deemed too controversial for 1947, it was changed to anti-Semitism; the irony, of course, was that Dmytryk caught the attention of the House Un-American Activities Committee on the basis of this plot-point and was subsequently investigated (later serving jail-time for refusing to cooperate). **1/2 from ****