Brighton Rock (1947)

Brighton Rock
Dir. John Boulting.
Associated British Picture Corp., 1947.

Actor Richard Attenborough (1923- )

Like most British actors, Attenborough began his career on the stage. That was in 1941, and he began working in pictures a year later. After serving in the Royal Air Force during the war, he continued to work regularly in films, averaging two pictures a year, while also remaining active in live theater between 1949 and 1959. His stocky, boyish appearance precluded roles as a leading man, so early on he was typecast playing characters younger than himself. In fact, in Brighton Rock, he played 17-year-old Pinky when he was really 24. While he began producing films with his own company in 1960, he continued his acting career, grew out of his tough-boy roles, and began playing solid, intelligent characters whose integrity he captured with intensity. He distinguished himself by earning the British Academy’s Best Actor award for Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964), and then two Golden Globes for Best Supporting Actor in The Sand Pebbles (1966) and Doctor Dolittle (1967). He has also played major roles in such popular hits as The Great Escape (1963), The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), and Jurassic Park (1993).

However, he has perhaps achieved the greatest notoriety as a director, beginning with a musical satire, Oh, What a Lovely War (1969), and mastering a range of genres, including political biography (Young Winston, 1972), war epic (A Bridge Too Far, 1977), dance musical (A Chorus Line, 1985), political message film (Cry Freedom, 1987), and character study (Shadowlands, 1993). His greatest achievement as a director was winning the Best Picture Oscar for Gandhi (1982), the film he had wanted to make since the 1960s (Falk and Edelman 45-48).

Screenwriter Graham Greene (1904-91)

The author of 25 novels, as well as film reviews in the Spectator (1935-1940), the author also wrote original screenplays adapting his own and other works. Among his works, the crime genre is aptly represented by his novels mostly adapted by others as the films Orient Express (1934), This Gun for Hire (1936), The Confidential Agent (1945), The Ministry of Fear (dir. Fritz Lang, 1944), The Comedians (1967), and The Human Factor (1979). Though he adapted the last two himself, they seem no better for it. These films are all rather pedestrian suspense thrillers and focus thematically on “the plight of ordinary men embroiled in unpredictable circumstances” (Hardy 151). However, Brighton Rock (1947), something of a showpiece of post-war vicious realism, is an exception to this trend. It is the only thriller to capture Greene’s thematic interest in suffering and spiritual redemption—the central subject of his most esteemed novel, The Power and the Glory (1940, filmed by John Ford as The Fugitive, 1947), which features a dramatic philosophical debate between a priest and a bandit in a Latin-American country where religion has been outlawed. In a very different vein is the witty comedy of cold war paranoia, Our Man in Havana (dir. Carol Reed, 1959), which Greene scripted himself. On his best screenplay, the thriller The Third Man (1949) he collaborated with director Carol Reed and, to some extent, with their American producer, David O. Selznick. This film is a masterpiece of post-war anxiety and film-noir style.

Tonight’s Feature

The film captures the essence of Greene’s Catholic concerns with guilt and innocence, evil and good in human nature, sin and redemption. Its religious theme makes for an unusual crime film, and it is really a moral drama. Yet, the cinematography of Harry Waxman captures the seedy environment where racecourse hoodlums live out their daily desperate gambles. Actually set in the decades between the two world wars—as the brief prologue makes clear, Brighton Rock must still reflect some of the post-war pressure and social disruption of 1947, when the film was released. Viewers in Britain, at least, had not yet rebuilt London after Hitler’s blitz or recovered from the war-torn economy, so they must have viewed the carefree tourist paradise of the prologue with skepticism. Greene’s cinematic framing of a shift from the time when he wrote the original novel (1938) creates a contrast between cheerfulness and melodrama that is consistent with the tone of the film’s setting. In fact, the very climate of self-indulgent pleasures and thrilling amusement rides in the British Coney Island of Brighton Beach serves to emphasize the menace of criminal violence, especially in the oddly charming quietude of Pinky Brown. This clearly repressed adolescent gang leader rules the older thieves with self assurance, implied threats, and occasional tantrums. We can sense he must have had a troubled childhood. But the social milieu in which he has attained his power also reflects the seaside combination of fun and crime. The racetrack may represent not only a tenuous connection to legality—with its potential for abuse by bookies and fixed races—but also the longshot bet that Pinkie makes with his soul. He knows he is damned, but he chooses the easy life of pleasure in the present.

Unlike a conventional mystery, this crime story reveals the murder from the criminal’s viewpoint. Instead of engaging the viewer in the suspense of solving a mystery, the narrative plays between Pinkie’s self-motivated courtship of a naive waitress, Rose, and a search for justice by an accidental detective, Ida. Pinkie calls her a “brass,” a prostitute, but she is, in fact, a performer who is part of the fun carnival world of the boardwalk. Nonetheless, she relentlessly pursues her intuition about a mysterious death and seeks out the murderer. At the same time, Ida takes a special interest in saving the innocent Rose from harm and degradation.

Pinkie claims that he and Rose are alike in being “sensitive,” which may be true since he has the sensitivity of a madman. But they are alike in being Catholic, believers in good and evil, reward and punishment. As an emblem of her faith, Rose carries a rosary and believes in redemption. “People change,” she says of the hoodlum Pinkie. But the more knowing Ida disagrees: “I’ve never changed. It’s like those sticks of rock. Bite one all the way down—you’ll still read Brighton. That’s human nature.” Even though this harsher reality is confirmed by Pinkie’s behavior and his fate, still Rose represents a goodness that can somehow persist in spite of evil, due to her faith in Pinkie, her hope for a brighter world, and her own unselfish love.

Works Cited

Falk, Quentin, and Rob Edelman. “Richard Attenborough.” International Dictionary of Films

and Filmmakers, Volume 3, Actors and Actresses. 3rd ed. Ed. Amy Unterburger. Detroit:

St. James Press, 1997. 45-48.

Hardy, Phil, ed. “Graham Greene.” BFI Companion to Crime. Berkeley, CA: University of

California Press, 1997. 151.

Handout prepared by Greg Lyons
for the Fall 2001 "Detective & Crime Movie" Series,
organized by Greg Lyons, with the support of
COCC Humanities Dept. & Westside Video (Bend, OR)

Related links

All-Movie Guide. All Media Guide, AEC One Stop Group, Inc., 1992-2002.
Search by Title, Person, or Keyword: http://allmovie.com/
...Brighton Rock
URL: http://allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=A7131
...John Boulting: Producer, Director
URL: http://allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=B82586
...Richard Attenborough: Actor, Producer [also a Director]
URL: http://allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=B80152
...Graham Greene: Screenwriter
URL: http://allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=B92487

Brighton Rock (1947). Internet Movie Database - IMDb.com, 1990-2002.
URL: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0039220
...External Reviews of Brighton Rock
URL: http://us.imdb.com/TUrls?COM+0039220
...Richard Attenborough
URL: http://us.imdb.com/Name?Attenborough,+Richard
...Graham Greene (I)
URL: http://us.imdb.com/Name?Greene,+Graham+(I)

Available online handouts for films shown in Fall 2001 "Detective & Crime Movie" Series:
Brighton Rock (1947). Dir. John Boulting.
URL: http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Film/brightonrock.htm
The Kennel Murder Case (1933). Dir. Michael Curtiz.
URL: http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Film/kennelmurdercase.htm
Murder, My Sweet (1945). Dir. Edward Dmytryck.
URL: http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Film/murdermysweet.htm
The Usual Suspects (1995). Dir. Bryan Singer.
URL: http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Film/usualsuspects.htm

See also Popular Culture Video List (2000).
Detective | Science fiction | Travel | Film noir | Spy thriller | Western
Greg Lyons, comp. COCC Library & Humanities Dept. video holdings, 2000.
URL: http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/courses/film/popculture.html

Return to Film Studies - Index of Online Resources
URL: http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Film/index.htm

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URL of this webpage: http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Film/brightonrock.htm
Last updated: 26 May 2003
Cora Agatucci ~ E-Mail: cagatucci@cocc.edu
Copyright © 2002-2003, Greg Lyons,
Humanities Department, Central Oregon Community College