Brighton Rock

I watched this movie because it was highly recommended in some of the articles about Richard Attenboroughs death. I thought it was great!

Attenborough is truly scary in this story. Unemotional thug who abhors feelings of any kind. Carol Marsh is absolutely outstanding as the naive waitress.

This is a terrific film, and you cant get it on disk in the US. Read about it on allmovie.com.

Amazing brutal, surprising, rivetting.

Enjoy Attenborough.

`Brighton Rock is essentially a tale of a teenage gangster, Pinkie Brown, and his attempts to silence a potential witness, Rose, to a crime. John Boulting (Thunder Rock, 1942; Im All Right Jack, 1959) directed it in 1947 and was producer by his twin brother Roy. The screenplay was adapted from the Graham Greene novel of the same name by Terence Rattigan. There are significant differences at the ending of the film in relation to the novel (the book is more brutal) but I think that it takes nothing away from the film or the book. Due to BBFC rules at the time some changes had to made to the intended ending (the record scene) of the film because they wanted it to have a happy ending, which I think in retrospect made it better. The only feature really missing is the strength of character development one could only expect from a novel. However saying all that, the adaptation is excellent. `Brighton Rock featured two brilliant performances from Richard Attenborough (In Which We Serve, 1942; A Matter Of Life And Death, 1946) as Pinkie and Carol Marsh as Rose. Richards performance is a career highlight for him, which could be regarded as the emergence of the `angry young man in British cinema, but it was Carols performance that I really loved. Her performance of innocence is something we so rarely see in modern cinema that it is remarkably refreshing to watch. One thing worth pointing out though is that Rose in the novel was not quite as pretty and we see more of her family life and the possible reason for her attachment to Pinkie. Carol Marsh never made many other significant films that I feel its a bit of a shame because I think weve missed something there. I place her performance alongside Dorothy Malones bit part in `The Big Sleep (1946) who we also never saw enough of sadly. Cinematography on `Brighton Rock was by Gilbert Taylor who would later work on films such as `Repulsion (Polanski, 1965) `Dr Strangelove (Kubrick, 1964) and the much loved `Star Wars (Lucas, 1977). Other films adapted from Graham Greene novels worth watching are `This Gun For Hire (Tuttle, 1942) which has a similar theme and the excellent `The Third Man (Reed, 1949). I loved this film and I loved the novel and I recommend both to you. `Brighton Rock is ranked No.15 in the BFI Top 100 British Films. I cant believe this is not available on Region 1 DVD yet. Get it on Region 2.

I had to watch this after reading Lynn Truss’s vastly entertaining novel, “A Shot in the Dark,” which refers to this movie and the book upon which it is based. I’m not usually a fan of movies about punk gangs, but I did enjoy this, especially the performance of Hermione Baddeley playing the sort of female character never allowed in American movies. She’s middle-aged, loud, determined and smart as can be. She’s a force to be reckoned with. Carol Marsh is also good as the naïve and trusting Rose, the opposite of Baddeley’s character. Richard Attenborough shifts his eyes, half closes them and opens them widely, which passes for great acting among some people.

This years Film Noir Festival at the American Film Institute has an international focus, exploding the long-held belief that noir stories and styles are a specifically American phenomenon. With this goal, the festival presented this 1947 British gangster film, Brighton Rock, which the British Film Institute lists as no. 15 of the 100 best British films. Besides seeing this film on a large screen in a beautiful theater, I had the opportunity to hear a succinct introduction to the movie by the scholar of noir film, Foster Hirsch. Brighton Rock was the first film setting of a novel by Graham Greene. Greene also wrote the screenplay in collaboration with Terrence Rattigan. John Boulting directed the film, but the primary attraction is the acting by a young Richard Attenborough, 24 years old at the time of this film. Attenborough plays a lean, snarling and psychotic Pinky Brown who leads a small gang of older men in the British resort village of Brighton. Attenborough acts with a sharp coldness and a hard stare in his eyes throughout. His hands nervously twitch around a rope which could be used for a whip or a garrotte. At 17, Pinkie is already a cool hardened cynical killer with a puritan streak -- no drinks, tobacco, or drugs and little interest in sex. The convoluted plot of the film turns on a gang war between Pinkies small group and a much larger and more powerful Brighton gang for control of the races and slot machines. Pinkie rashly is attempting to muscle in. In the course of the conflict a newspaper reporter is killed and Pinkie must kill further to cover his tracks. Among his victims is an innocent young witness, a waitress named Rose, played by Carol Marsh who also gives a beautiful performance of a naïve, gullible, lonely woman who falls in love with a hard, cruel man. Pinkie marries Carol to prevent her from giving testimony against him. A third well played role in the film is given by Hermione Bradley who portrays a busy-body middle-aged woman who pursues Pinky for his crimes even while the police are ready to give up. The film has a strong noir sense with its sharply etched black-and-white cinematography. The film is set both in the amusement park area on the beach as well as in the alleys and backstreets which included old rooming houses and pubs and an aggressive criminal element. With the book and script by Greene, the film also includes a strong positive emphasis on Catholicism and on redemption, particularly in an ironic scene at the movies close. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to see Brighton Rock onscreen and to have the benefit as well of an informed commentary. Fans of noir or of gangster films or British films will enjoy this movie. Robin Friedman

Poorly written. Attenborough good. But not a credible story.

A brilliant noir film, far superior to the 2010 remake, although it softened elements from the even better novel.