A 1948 film noir from Blighty starring Richard Attenborough. Taking place in the seaside town of Brighton we descend upon a gang of toughs led by Attenborough who run their own piece of turf. When a newspaper employee comes to town to hand out cards for a contest, he becomes the eye of Attenborough's storm since his paper wrote an expose of the gang's activities which prompts his removal (during an extended chase through the boardwalk) but not before he befriends a local hanger on, played by Hermione Baddeley, who files away the encounter for later recall. Attenborough then goes on an all out rampage to make sure his hands & people (which includes future Dr. Who, William Hartnell) were free of blame of the killing. Of course the more he presses, the more entrenched does the gang get involved especially when Attenborough tries to erase the card trail at a café where he meets a shy & impressionable waitress, played by Carol Marsh, which puts him in an uncomfortable position so he decides to romance her so if he slips up criminally in front of her, she can't say anything since at some future point, they may be married. Diminutive in stature but making up for it as a sociopath, Attenborough throws his weight around till his own men decide to sic the cops on him (after Attenborough kills one of his own in a building). Attenborough is literally a force of nature as his sniveling presence is enough to cower his underlings while also being able to cajole the affections of a naïve waif (wait for this twisted ending!) to his will. Based on a Grahame Greene throwaway (the author's own estimation of his lesser work) & which also produced a 2010 remake (which I haven't seen), this film lives up to the maxim of most successful noirs where the anti-hero goes down for his own obsessions.
Review of Brighton Rock
