BRIGHTON ROCK
1947/UK
Directors/Producers: John and Roy Boulting (twin brothers who alternated directing and producing chores on many films: John directed and Roy produced Brighton Rock).
Screenplay: Terrence Rattigan from the novel by Grahame Greene
Cinematographer: Henry Waxman
Cast: Richard Attenborough, Carol Marsh, Hermione Baddeley, William Hartnell, Alan Wheatley
Brighton Rock is another of the British post-WWII "noir" films that were eagerly consumed by a public weary of rationing and deprivation. It may be the best. A very young Richard Attenborough stars as "Pinkie" Brown, a psychopathic, razor-wielding "spiv" (small-time criminal) who, along with his small gang, runs a protection racket at the racetrack in the seaside resort of Brighton.
The film is broadly based on fact and is beautifully written and photographed, with a strong storyline and great dialogue. The bleak and cynical outlook of the script is well matched by a marvelously suitable score by Hans May.
The sunny, festive resort of Brighton seems an odd setting for this type of film, but cinematographer Waxman and writers Greene and Rattigan achieve an underlying tension and palpable sense of menace. The film's realism revived memories of pre-WWII gaing violence in the city and prompted a disclaimed at the beginning (at the request of Brighton's town council) that the film depicts a "time between the wars" when crime was a problem in the city--"a Brighton happily no more."
Pinkie, the youngest member of the gang but the most dangerous, has taken over as leader following the death of his "chief" Bill Kite, murdered by a rival mob who believe that he had betrayed them by revealing facts to a newspaper reporter for an exposé article.
The movie centers around Pinkie's revenge killing of the reporter who wrote the article and the resulting fallout. Pinkie feels the heat from both the police and rival gangsters--and from within his own gang as his henchmen begin to doubt his ability to lead them out of the morass. The storyline follows his increasingly desperate attempts to beat the murder rap and retain his gangland status.
Attenborough is riveting as the ambitious young hoodlum whose monomaniacal pursuit of the newsman (Wheatley) and those he perceives as threats leads to disaster for all involved. Carol Marsh (in her first film) does a good job of portraying Rose, a young waitress whose testimony could convict Pinkie. To prevent this, he first weds her and then sets about plotting her demise.
Marsh's character was difficult to portray: she is so unbelievably lovestruck that she falls for the repellant Pinkie even after he tacitly threatens to blind her with acide on their first date! Throughout the film his treatment of her is cruelly contemptuous, yet she naively follows him into marriage--and she nearly pays the ultimate choice for her decision.
The rest of the cast is excellent, especially Hermione Baddeley as Ida Arnold, a brassy boardwalk performer who had briefly befriended the newsman and appoints herself his avenger, setting about to gather evidence against Pinky; and veteran heavy William Hartnell as Pinky's right-hand man Dallow, a thug capable of chilling brutality (like his boss) but who also possesses principles (which will, in the end, redeem him).
An intersting noir side note: the murder of Bill Kite is described in another, earlier Greene novel, A Gun For Sale (1936). The killer's name? Raven. You can connect the dots.
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