Brighton Rock [DVD] [1947]

I rated this once before but Im continuously asked to review it so here goes for a 2nd time. Attenborough is truly scary in this story. Unemotional thug who abhors feelings of any kind. Carol Marsh is absolutely outstanding as the naive waitress.

Great Black and White with riveting suspense.

The new version of this film was much much better. This is too old fashioned a production. Hammy and cornball compared to the new film version. Julian Wasser

This is a terrific film, and you cant get it on disk in the US. Read about it on allmovie.com.

Classic British Noir. Attenborough is Britains answer to Richard Widmark in this. Since he typically played a nice guy later in life, it has tremendous impact.

Attenborough is truly scary in this story. Unemotional thug who abhors feelings of any kind. Carol Marsh is absolutely outstanding as the naive waitress.

You will also be very tempted to fall for the very cute hard-boiled psychopath, and sometimes thats ok. However, that warm-hearted streak of hope may be better spent on rescuing a puppy or a new pair of shoes. A somewhat hilarious intensity will mount...will he, wont he? The world may never know. Neither will she! Awesome.

Excellent performances by Attenborough and Baddeley with a good supporting cast. Just as dark as the book, but in an abbreviated format.

Complex, disturbing noir character study/thriller about a 17 year old baby-faced gang leader named `Pinky, played by the director-to-be Richard Attenborough in an astonishing performance. Based on a Graham Greene novel, and co-written by Green and Terrence Rattigan (The Browning Version, The Winslow Boy), Pinky is a tremendously complex character, a sociopath to be sure, but one with a heart still beating somewhere deep down inside. Tortured by his Catholic upbringing, and repressed sexually, he vents his teen angst in violence that becomes increasingly uncontrollable, while finding his heart touched in spite of himself by a girl he marries ostensibly just to keep her from giving evidence against him. This is a tough picture, no Hollywood softened edges here. And arguably one of the better gangster films ever made.

Complex, disturbing noir character study/thriller about a 17 year old baby-faced gang leader named `Pinky, played by the director-to-be Richard Attenborough in an astonishing performance. Based on a Graham Greene novel, and co-written by Green and Terrence Rattigan (The Browning Version, The Winslow Boy), Pinky is a tremendously complex character, a sociopath to be sure, but one with a heart still beating somewhere deep down inside. Tortured by his Catholic upbringing, and repressed sexually, he vents his teen angst in violence that becomes increasingly uncontrollable, while finding his heart touched in spite of himself by a girl he marries ostensibly just to keep her from giving evidence against him. This is a tough picture, no Hollywood softened edges here. And arguably one of the better gangster films ever made.