British Gangsters: Brighton Rock (Dir John Boulting, 1h33m, 1948)

The gangster is a quintessential part of the British cinematic landscape; the popularity of TV's Peaky Blinders, of Guy Ritchie's cockney geezers as seen in Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and Snatch, the mockney-busters they inspired, and the urbane, and American-aping works, like Kidulthood. All build upon a rich vein of cinema, dating back to the post-war era, in which gangsters became more than just the violent centre of morality tales, to stylish or grounded neo-noirs, to a dark reflection of social conditions with the arrival of the 1980s. Over this season, we will consider how the gangster gained his place in British cinema; where better to start than Brighton Rock, in which Richard Attenborough's sadistic Pinky Brown stalks the terraced streets of the sleazy seaside town in the Boulting brothers' slick film noir.

Once again, we return to Graham Greene; the novel of Brighton Rock is published in 1938, and quickly becomes popular, with its mix of taut murder thriller, morality novel- its protagonist and his love interest, Rose opposing forces in an argument around Christian sin-as well as class, makes it a work ripe for adaption. Five years later, following an American adaption, Frank Harvey's adaption for the stage will open for a run of over 100 performances. Starring a young actor called Richard Attenborough, it will not only be hugely successful, but pave the way for a film version, script now written by Greene and British playwright Terence Rattigan, notable for a number of plays focusing on broken relationships and the repression of the English upper classes. Directing and producing will be John and Roy Boulting; John is already known to both Attenborough and Rattigan, the trio working on patriotic drama, Journey Together (1945); Brighton Rock will be their second film made after the end of the war.

The archetypal gangster: Attenborough's Pinky Brown is as chilling as he is memorable

Brighton, between the wars; Brighton Rock makes much of its location: there is, in much the same way that Quadrophenia (1979) visually transcribed The Who's concept album into the town it was set in, making Brighton a presence, so Brighton Rock makes it a veritable character, albeit one gone into the past of the decades between the Wars. Brighton looms, not just as a down-at-heel mirror for Pinky, but as a manifestation of the darkness to which he belongs: away from the promenades, donkey rides, candyfloss, and smart beach-front hotels, we enter a very different Brighton, of terraced houses and rickety lodgings. Several times, the film takes us into this darker side of Brighton. The first is to meet Pinky Brown himself, as the camera passes through the lodging that he and his gang live in, we ascend the stairs, and following William Hartnell's Dallow, enter Pinky's room, the young gangster only revealed as a newspaper is lowered

This newspaper, as Pinky pores over it, reports the arrival of Kolley Kibber (based on a real life newspaper promotion Lobby Lud) and his prizes in town. Kibber is known to the gang as Fred Hale (Peter Wollen), a roving reporter on the local criminal underworld in Brighton, and Pinky immediately sets out to extort the promotion from him. Pinky is the beginning of what film theorist Peter Wollen entitled "the Spiv cycle"-we shall consider another of its entries next week in The Night and the City (1950)-he is a perfect example of the spiv as protagonist, a pragmatic, violent-we see him smash glasses when he and his gang track down the unfortunate Fred to intimidate the reporter-and psychopathic young man. All of this, Attenborough plays with a detached coldness; at points there is a genuine chill to Pinky's gaze, a lifelessness behind the eyes, whilst at others his violent streak flares to the surface. Yet, there is something truly, horribly, electrifying about his presence in the film, even as we see limits to his control over Brighton.

Brighton Rock focuses on the "morality play" of Pinky and Rose that forms the moral, and emotional centre of the film.

Pinky and his gang track down, and pursue Fred/Kibber through Brighton-a sequence shot verité style as the actors run through unsuspecting crowds-before Pinky slides into shot as Fred makes to ride the Ghost Train on Brighton Pier, and the violence implied is more horrifying than anything the recently relaxed BBFC guidelines on violence could show, although what is shown, particularly in the racecourse scene where a rival gang attacks, remains remarkably stark. By now, though, things have become complicated: Fred, and his fearful state whilst being pursued have attracted the attention of touring singer, Ida (an enjoyably busy-bodying Hermione Baddeley), whilst, when attempting to recover one of Kibble/Fred's cards, so Pinky convinces the waitress who has found it, Rose (Carol Marsh), to go on a date with him.

Both are foils to Pinky in different ways; we see Ida's detection, her suspicion of what has transpired between Pinky and Fred, only growing when the young man is involved in another suspicious death. Baddley gives Ida's role a sense of justice and authority usually restricted to male law enforcement, and it is her investigation that ultimately wrongfoots Pinky. Yet, she is part of a whole; against her is Rose; not only is this Marsh's first film role, but she is replacing Dulcie Gray in a cast that otherwise largely reprise their West End roles-if Ida is the film's moral centre, then Rose is its emotional one. We see her relationship with Pinky quickly develop, whilst his plans for her become darker and more murderous as the film progresses; it is this murderous intent, Pinky's veiled self-loathing for the young woman-although, to Greene's annoyance, the film leaves perhaps the novel's darkest moment involving the couple out of the film-that is eventually his undoing.

It is through her that Greene's Catholicism, his themes of sin, and redemption, and of the moral struggle at the centre of the film between the amoral Pinky and the devout, and ultimately redeemed Rose, are explored. Brighton Rock is more than just a film about "Sin on Sea", as Brighton used to be dubbed, but the start of the British fascination with the gangster, a slickly made noir through which runs, at its core, like a stick of Brighton rock, a chilling performance by the young Attenborough as the first of many memorable English cinematic gangsters.

 Rating: Must See

Brighton Rock is available to stream via Amazon Prime and is available via DVD and Bluray from Optimum Home Releasing.

Next week, we remain in the company of spivs, and head to London, for Jules Dassin's pitch black noir, The Night and the City