Richard Brooks's 1945 debut novel The Brick Foxhole made only a slight impression on the literary establishment, but it definitely provided him with the entrée into Hollywood that in a few years led to his assuming the director's chair at M-G-M. The novel would quickly be adapted for the screen as Crossfire (1947), and it would find considerable popular and critical success. Playwright Clifford Odets, who hoped that a version of The Brick Foxhole might find its way to the stage, introduced Brooks to Adrian Scott at RKO. Scott already knew of the novel; impressed, he optioned the rights and produced the film from a script by John Paxton with Edward Dmytryk directing. Before that deal was finalized, however, Humphrey Bogart read The Brick Foxhole and recommended it to reporter-turned-producer Mark Hellinger. Hellinger passed on the project, but he was impressed enough with Brooks's abilities to hire him to work (if uncredited) on the script for The Killers (1946); soon thereafter, this time for screen credit, Brooks wrote the screenplay for Hellinger's production of Brute Force (1947), directed by Jules Dassin. That next year, Bogart and Brooks would work together on John Huston's Key Largo (1948). Brooks profited from the tutelage of the director and screenwriter in completing the script. After he was promoted to directing, his friendship with Bogart led to two other collaborations: on Deadline—U.S.A. (1952) and Battle Circus (1953).

Doubtless, because of this networking, The Brick Foxhole was crucial in furthering Brooks's film career. Crossfire is a landmark social problem film/detective noir. The film dramatizes the murder of a Jewish civilian by a bigoted soldier and the resulting investigation of the crime. In so doing, it explores the uncertainties that challenged returning soldiers, offering a denunciation of divisive social prejudice. The novel also exposes the degrading and alienating conditions endured by soldiers posted stateside in wartime. Throughout the novel Brooks dramatizes the existence of racism, anti-Semitism, and nascent fascism among civilians and soldiers alike. He also demonstrates how military training makes men susceptible to pervasive racism, one of the strands of a nascent fascism in the national culture. Published just weeks after Germany's surrender but before the end of the war, The Brick Foxhole appealed to Scott because he and his creative team, Paxton and Dmytryk, agreed with Brooks's warning about the threat of a home-grown fascism and racial hatred now that its overseas version had been defeated.