It might be a commonplace critically to pronounce the first film version of Graham Greene's novel to be not as good as the source- text, but in this case we would be terribly wrong.
John Boulting's film offers a dystopian world of mid-twentieth century Brighton: ostensibly set during the Thirties but applying as much to the time when the film was released. The resort's streets teem with people desperately trying to have a good time in the sunshine, sitting in deck-chairs, eating in shabby restaurants, enjoying rides in the Chamber of Horrors or eating candy-floss. Brief romances wither and flourish; older citizens find solace in the pub. No one, it seems, can think about the future; everything must be lived in the present, otherwise they might succumb to desperation.
In this kind of environment it's hardly surprising that Pinkie (Richard Attenborough) and his gang should thrive. They can offer 'protection' from the chaos - at a price, of course - and should their victims be unable to pay up, they can be readily disposed of. This was the time of the spiv and his henchpersons, who walked unmolested through the streets, carefully concealing themselves from public view and striking when and where necessary.
Harry Waxman has produced some truly memorable visual metaphors for this world. He uses a tilted camera in which the characters' faces are reflected in the mirror; on at least two occasions he has people smashing china figures on the ground. The death of Pinkie's loyal associate Spicer (Wylie Watson) is truly shocking, especially when the gang-leader throws a suitcase of the old man's clothes from an upper level down to the lower level, to rest on the inanimate corpse. Human life is that cheap for the young man.
Yet the Boultings' version of the book also focuses on another level of meaning, as it tries to explore Pinkie's psychology in terms of his religion. He continually fingers his rosary beads, reminding us of his lapsed Catholicism; this represents a source of considerable guilt, but he conceals it beneath a veneer of bravado. Attenborough is quite masterful at this; his face remains impassive throughout, his eyes staring coldly at the camera or boring into his friends' expressions as if defying them to detect a chink of emotion underneath. He believes that the only means to survive in an amoral world is to be a 'hard man.'
In line with the censorship codes of the day, Pinkie is brought to bear in the end, as he loses his sang froid and commits suicide - a final betrayal of his Catholic faith. But the Boultings have not finished yet; in a supremely unexpected moment, they have Pinkie's common-law widow (Carol Marsh) playing a gramophone record of her husband disclosing her true feelings for him. The needle sticks, and we hear only one phrase repeated over and over, so much so that it becomes meaningless - a suitable metaphor for the world Pinkie inhabited.
Owing a lot to the pragmatic techniques of British documentary film=making, with lighting and shadow effects straight from German Expressionist movies of the previous decade, BRIGHTON ROCK is a true classic of the postwar British cinema, as arresting today as it ever was.
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