Criss Cross is a 1949 film noir

Film noir

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...

, directed by Robert Siodmak

Robert Siodmak

Robert Siodmak was a German born American film director. He is best remembered as a thriller specialist and for the series of Hollywood film noirs he made in the 1940s.-Early life:...

 from a novel of the same name by Don Tracy. This black-and-white

Black-and-white

Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...

 film was shot partly on location in the Bunker Hill section of Los Angeles.

Bunker Hill, Los Angeles, California

Bunker Hill, in the downtown area of Los Angeles, California, is a short, developed hill with its peak located roughly around 3rd Street. It is located directly east of the Harbor Freeway...

  The film was written by Daniel Fuchs

Daniel Fuchs

Daniel Fuchs was an American screenwriter, fiction writer, and essayist.-Biography:Daniel Fuchs was born in the Lower East Side, Manhattan, but his family migrated to Williamsburg, Brooklyn while Fuchs was an infant...

. Franz Planer

Franz Planer

Franz Planer, A.S.C. was a cinematographer born in Karlsbad, Austria-Hungary ,-Biography:...

's cinematography

Cinematography

Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...

 creates a black-and-white

Black-and-white

Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...

 film noir

Film noir

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...

 world. Miklós Rózsa

Miklós Rózsa

Miklós Rózsa was a Hungarian-born composer trained in Germany , and active in France , England , and the United States , with extensive sojourns in Italy from 1953...

 scored the film's soundtrack

Soundtrack

A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...

. The film was remade as The Underneath in 1995..

The production nearly derailed when producer Mark Hellinger

Mark Hellinger

Mark Hellinger was an American journalist, theatre columnist, and film producer.-Early life and career:Hellinger was born into an Orthodox Jewish family in New York City, although in later life he became a non-practicing Jew. When he was fifteen, he organized a student strike at Townsend Harris...

 died suddenly before filming began.