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." Variety gave Act of Violence a positive review, writing "The grim melodrama implied by its title is fully displayed in Act 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 Astora woman of the streets who gives Heflin shelter during his wild flight from fate." Film reviewer Roger Westcombe, writing for the Big House Film Society, considers Act of Violence 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, perishedseparatelyin 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." Currently, it holds a 90% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 10 reviews. Awards and honors Fred Zinnemann was nominated for the Grand Prize of the Festival at the 1949 Cannes Film Festival for his work on Act of Violence. References Further reading Jarlett, Franklin (1997) Robert Ryan: A Biography and Critical Filmography. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. . External links 1949 films 1949 crime drama films American black-and-white films American chase films American crime drama films Film noir American films about revenge Films directed by Fred Zinnemann Films scored by Bronisław Kaper Films set in California Films shot in Big Bear Lake, California Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films 1940s chase films 1940s English-language films 1940s American films