Brighton Rock

Brighton, the thirties. There is a small gang in the seaside town and Pinkie leads it. He is seventeen; he does not drink, has no interest in women and trusts nobody. He has a journalist killed. The murder looks like an accident, but a girl notices one detail. Rose works in a tea room and does not know what she saw means. Pinkie finds a way to silence her: he will marry her, and then she cannot testify against him. Rose falls in love with him. John Boulting directs. Richard Attenborough plays Pinkie. The source is Graham Greene's novel and the writer worked on the screenplay himself. Attenborough had played the part on stage and the film comes out of that production. The matter underneath is religion; Pinkie and Rose share the same faith and the idea of damnation sits throughout the narrative. The ending differs from the novel; the closing scene softens the cruelty of the book, and that was argued over for a long time. The Brighton shooting was done in real locations and the front, the pier and the funfair are part of the narrative. The film drew objections in Britain on release; how the violence and the town were shown was criticised. It is counted among the most cited examples of British noir. Who it is for: viewers who like classic British crime films and literary adaptation. Who it is not for: the register is dark, the characters repellent, and the ending contested.