Brighton Rock (1948)

Seventeen-year-old psychopath Pinkie Brown (Richard Attenborough) runs a cheap protection racket in Brighton with his gang of Dallow (William Hartnell), Cubitt (Nigel Stock), and Spicer (Wylie Watson). He kills a reporter, and it is ruled a suicide, but Ida (Hermione Baddeley), a performer the reporter met briefly, doesn’t believe it and sets out to prove it was murder. Rose (Carol Marsh), a naïve and lonely waitress, has evidence, so Pinkie “courts” her to keep her quiet. At the same time, a larger gang is moving in.

This is British-style Noir, with daylight open-spaces bright and cheery, but nights dreary and dangerous and interiors gloomy and sickly. And unlike many of the top American Noirs, there are no even semi-competent crooks. Pinkie is not only evil, he’s stupid and acts without thinking. His gang doesn’t trust him, and the police are far too hands-off. The larger gang has a good deal of power in town but are just a bunch of thugs controlled by a “businessman.”

For Pinkie and his gang, crime has not paid. They live in a grimy boarding house, much more impoverished than those they harass. This is a bleak petty world of evil and foolish people. And like the Post-War British Comedies that were rising at the time over at Ealing studios, the characters are all a bit quirky and a touch removed from reality.

Graham Greene adapted his own novel and believed he improved on it. I’m not about to argue that as as the script is excellent, mixing clever dialog, character development, and rich themes effortlessly. At the helm were the Boulting Brothers, a pair who would produce a string of solid satires in the ‘50s and ‘60s (Private’s Progress, Lucky Jim, I’m All Right Jack, Carlton-Browne of the F.O., Heavens Above!). Perhaps their best move was casting a young Attenborough—best known now as the kindly but foolish maker of Jurassic Park. He brings an insane intensity to Pinkie, one of the great Noir villains. Pinkie always attempts to appear controlled, but you can see his anger and fear in every scene, ready to explode out of him. The rest of the film is good, but Attenborough’s performance is astounding.

The religious aspect is paired back from the novel (due to censorship concerns, which is also responsible for a statement at the beginning of the film saying that Brighton is a lovely spot now) but is still the foundation of the story. Rose is a good Catholic girl who would damn herself for Pinkie. Pinkie sees himself as already damned. Under his bravado, he is scared of a Hell he believes in as surely as Rose does. It is amusing that modern commentators think that the altered ending makes the film softer, but those people are overlooking the religious aspect. I’ll be vague to avoid spoilers, and say only that the ending as is has serious religious consequences.

Brighton Rock is well remembered in England, but is overlooked in America. It shouldn’t be.