Brighton Rock

John Boulting
1947

Pitched by Film Forum as British noir, but more resembling straight crime drama, "Brighton Rock" is made audacious (and difficult) for giving it's gangster lead an unrepentantly rotten core. Future "Gandhi" (1982) director Richard Attenborough's rising hoodlum Pinkie Brown, is the one-man cause of misery for those around him. Small time Pinkie clashes against the underworld's big-boys, bumps off enemies and friends alike, and ruthlessly seduces a naive waitress who unwittingly has evidence against him. The plotting plods, and the dirty deeds aren't all that titillating, but the characters are colorful and well acted. Doomed henchman Spicer, Harcourt Williams' boozy tortured lawyer, and a brassy two-bit stage dame intent on righting the wrongs, all help to elevate the picture above average. Director Boulting adequately lenses the tense situations and ironic, semi-Hitchcockian setups Graham Greene is known for though as far as Greene adaptations are concerned I still prefer "The Third Man" (1949) and "The Fallen Idol" (1948)