It was written by Graham Greene in the 1930s, shortly after a notorious murder case (or cases) in 1934 wherein two women's bodies were found in trunks in the Brighton Railway Station. One of the women was identified, and her lover/husband Tony Mancini (who accidentally killed her in a freak accident during an argument) barely got acquitted due to his lawyer Norman Birkett. The other woman was traced, but an ambitious local policeman wrecked the nearly completed case against a socially well connected abortionist. That Brighton, the so-called fun center for vacationing Brits, was soiled by this double tragedy goes without saying. Greene added to it the growing problem of rival criminal gangs working at race tracks and in various rackets. Big time crime is not only an American problem but is in every country. The figure of the successful thug Colleoni (Charles Goldner) is a good 1930 style version of the Krays of the 1960s.
BRIGHTON ROCK as a film (with screenplay by Greene and Terrance Rattigan) actually sticks pretty close to the novel, except perhaps in the characterization of Ida Arnold (Hermoine Baddeley - later Mrs. Naugatuck on the television comedy MAUDE) and in the conclusion concerning the record that is left by Pinkie (Richard Attenborough) with his overly fixated wife Rose (Carol Marsh). Greene was always using his novels to push his Catholicism, but he was a tragic realist at the bottom. Ida is shown to be determined to get justice for the dead newsman Fred Hale / "Kolley Kibber" (Alan Wheatley). But Greene never likes this avenger - he finds that she unconsciously stirs up more trouble for others (including the unfortunate Spicer (Wylie Watson) than her actions are worth. As for the record, at the end of the film it is broken due to Pinkie's attempt to destroy it. So it (ironically) only repeats him saying "I love you". In the novel poor Rose plays it as the book ends and as the readers depart - it probably spews forth his actual message of hatred to her.
Pinkie may be the worst villain in Greene's novels. He was the loyal young lieutenant of the original gang leader Kite (whose death is mentioned at the start of the film - and is due to an expose that Hale published). Pinkie is ruthless and smart, so he has assumed leadership of the gang over the aging Spicer, the more rational Cubitt (Nigel Stock), and Dallow (William Hartnell, in a typically well done underplayed role - which surprises us at the end). However Pinkie is immature and ruthless. He sees himself as the equal of Colleoni, who is capable of spitting out enough "torpedoes" and "goons" in an hour to threaten Pinkie than the latter realizes. Pinkie never wavers from his target or goal, and we watch the steps he uses to follow the frightened Hale to the latter's end in the films first twenty minutes. He uses similar concentration on results to kill one other character, blackmail one other person, and manipulate the love besotted Rose throughout the film. But his actions are never carefully thought through. Several times he actually has all the cards in his hands to win or get away with the murder, but his immaturity and temper keep ruining his success.
Rose is equally interesting - a thoroughly decent and sweet girl. Like Pinkie she is a Catholic, but a better one (ironically he once thought of being a priest). She finds him threatening but also reassuring (once he is aware he can control her he sees little real reason to do her harm - until the conclusion of the film). She even speaks up for him against Ida, trying to warn her about the threat to her because Rose accidentally can trip up the perfection of Pinkie's alibi for Hale's death.
The murder of Hale (in a "Dante's Inferno" "Fun House" on Brighton Pier) is wonderfully done, using the faces of the evil spirits in the darkened tunnel to counterpoint the helplessness of Hale's situation. But the murder in the book is different. Hale is lured to an isolated spot, and he choked to death by Pinkie using a popular candy called a "Brighton Rock" thrust down the journalist throat. That was the reason for the title (an ironic counterpoint to the holiday atmosphere of the town and the murder itself). Instead we see Hale is drowned in the film. Still it is an very effective sequence.
The other actors are pretty good. Watson is best recalled for another sad victim he played a decade earlier: he was the unfortunate "Mr. Memory" in Hitchcock's THE THIRTY NINE STEPS. Also there is Harcourt Williams as Pinkie's lawyer, Pruitt. Williams (best remembered for some of his roles in the Olivier Shakespeare films) plays the elderly, crooked lawyer as a figure of some pathos: he realizes he is a ruin of the man he should have been, pointing out to Ida his photograph as a public school boy decades before.
The film is a rich one, and time prevents from mentioning other points in it. Suffice to say that to keep his alibi and perfect crime perfect Pinkie must marry Rose, and must seek the moment to get rid of her, while Ida tries to get the authorities to reopen the murder. But in the end he finds (literally) his plans collapse to destroy him.
One last point: the death of Kite was an event that Greene mentions in another novel of the period, that also was turned into a popular film. Another member of the gang was Raven, the killer who leaves the gang and becomes a hit-man in THIS GUN FOR HIRE. Probably had he stayed in Brighton, he (not Pinkie) would have led the gang. That would have been a different story.
BRIGHTON ROCK as a film (with screenplay by Greene and Terrance Rattigan) actually sticks pretty close to the novel, except perhaps in the characterization of Ida Arnold (Hermoine Baddeley - later Mrs. Naugatuck on the television comedy MAUDE) and in the conclusion concerning the record that is left by Pinkie (Richard Attenborough) with his overly fixated wife Rose (Carol Marsh). Greene was always using his novels to push his Catholicism, but he was a tragic realist at the bottom. Ida is shown to be determined to get justice for the dead newsman Fred Hale / "Kolley Kibber" (Alan Wheatley). But Greene never likes this avenger - he finds that she unconsciously stirs up more trouble for others (including the unfortunate Spicer (Wylie Watson) than her actions are worth. As for the record, at the end of the film it is broken due to Pinkie's attempt to destroy it. So it (ironically) only repeats him saying "I love you". In the novel poor Rose plays it as the book ends and as the readers depart - it probably spews forth his actual message of hatred to her.
Pinkie may be the worst villain in Greene's novels. He was the loyal young lieutenant of the original gang leader Kite (whose death is mentioned at the start of the film - and is due to an expose that Hale published). Pinkie is ruthless and smart, so he has assumed leadership of the gang over the aging Spicer, the more rational Cubitt (Nigel Stock), and Dallow (William Hartnell, in a typically well done underplayed role - which surprises us at the end). However Pinkie is immature and ruthless. He sees himself as the equal of Colleoni, who is capable of spitting out enough "torpedoes" and "goons" in an hour to threaten Pinkie than the latter realizes. Pinkie never wavers from his target or goal, and we watch the steps he uses to follow the frightened Hale to the latter's end in the films first twenty minutes. He uses similar concentration on results to kill one other character, blackmail one other person, and manipulate the love besotted Rose throughout the film. But his actions are never carefully thought through. Several times he actually has all the cards in his hands to win or get away with the murder, but his immaturity and temper keep ruining his success.
Rose is equally interesting - a thoroughly decent and sweet girl. Like Pinkie she is a Catholic, but a better one (ironically he once thought of being a priest). She finds him threatening but also reassuring (once he is aware he can control her he sees little real reason to do her harm - until the conclusion of the film). She even speaks up for him against Ida, trying to warn her about the threat to her because Rose accidentally can trip up the perfection of Pinkie's alibi for Hale's death.
The murder of Hale (in a "Dante's Inferno" "Fun House" on Brighton Pier) is wonderfully done, using the faces of the evil spirits in the darkened tunnel to counterpoint the helplessness of Hale's situation. But the murder in the book is different. Hale is lured to an isolated spot, and he choked to death by Pinkie using a popular candy called a "Brighton Rock" thrust down the journalist throat. That was the reason for the title (an ironic counterpoint to the holiday atmosphere of the town and the murder itself). Instead we see Hale is drowned in the film. Still it is an very effective sequence.
The other actors are pretty good. Watson is best recalled for another sad victim he played a decade earlier: he was the unfortunate "Mr. Memory" in Hitchcock's THE THIRTY NINE STEPS. Also there is Harcourt Williams as Pinkie's lawyer, Pruitt. Williams (best remembered for some of his roles in the Olivier Shakespeare films) plays the elderly, crooked lawyer as a figure of some pathos: he realizes he is a ruin of the man he should have been, pointing out to Ida his photograph as a public school boy decades before.
The film is a rich one, and time prevents from mentioning other points in it. Suffice to say that to keep his alibi and perfect crime perfect Pinkie must marry Rose, and must seek the moment to get rid of her, while Ida tries to get the authorities to reopen the murder. But in the end he finds (literally) his plans collapse to destroy him.
One last point: the death of Kite was an event that Greene mentions in another novel of the period, that also was turned into a popular film. Another member of the gang was Raven, the killer who leaves the gang and becomes a hit-man in THIS GUN FOR HIRE. Probably had he stayed in Brighton, he (not Pinkie) would have led the gang. That would have been a different story.