Brighton Rock

Brighton Rock (1948)

Graham Greene's Shocking Thriller of the RAZOR GANGS!

Centring on the activities of a gang of assorted criminals and, in particular, their leader – a vicious young hoodlum known as "Pinkie" – the film's main thematic concern is the criminal underbelly evident in inter-war Brighton.

Date of release
1948-01-09
TMDB
6.8 / 10 (137)
Runtime
1h 32m
Genres
Crime, Drama, Thriller
Director
John Boulting

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Budget: £192.4K
  • Based on: Brighton Rock

Brighton Rock is a 1948 British film noir directed by John Boulting, produced Roy Boulting, and starring Richard Attenborough, Hermione Baddeley, William Hartnell and Carol Marsh in her film debut. It is based on the 1938 novel by Graham Greene, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Terence Rattigan, and its 1943 stage adaptation by Frank Harvey.

Production

Greene and Terence Rattigan wrote the screenplay for the 1948 film adaptation, produced and directed by John and Roy Boulting, with assistant director Gerald Mitchell. The ironic ending of the film, in which Rose's damaged gramophone record of Pinkie's voice sticks and repeats the words "I love you", was changed against Greene's wishes from his original story, in which Rose is about to hear the entire recording and will realise that Pinkie hated…

The Colleoni gang was modelled after the Sabini racetrack gang of the 1930s, which fought public battles with straight razors in its competition to control crime at racecourses in southern England, including one at Brighton. A former Sabini gang member named Carl Ramon served as technical adviser, including teaching Attenborough how to behave as Pinkie. Ramon also appeared in a non-speaking role as a barman.

Most of the principal cast reprised their roles from the 1943 West End play: Richard Attenborough, William Hartnell, Norman Pierce, Harcourt Williams and Hermione Baddeley. The Boultings later stated that they had not actually seen the play, but cast Attenborough on the strength of his performance in In Which We Serve (1942). Instructed to lose weight for the film, Attenborough trained with Chelsea F.C.

Newcomer Carol Marsh was cast as Rose after responding to a newspaper advertisement for a 16 or 17-year-old girl, "frail, innocent, naive, and tolerably but not excessively pretty." Although the film was her most significant role, in 1997 she said that she "had never seen the film and couldn't bear to."

Much of the filming was done on location in Brighton, although some locations were recreated at Welwyn Studios. The scenes where Fred is pursued through Brighton were shot with hidden cameras, capturing footage of Brighton residents and tourists engaged in their regular activities, unaware that a movie was being made.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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