01x03 - Brighton Rock

[bunniefuu]

Made in 1947 and directed
by John Boulting,

Brighton Rock remains
one of the true exemplars

of a very British
flavour of film noir.

It is a gripping tale of
gangsters, m*rder, and cover-up.

A truly bleak report
on the human condition

and hardly an advert for the
sunny charms of this seaside town.

Well, it was certainly one of
the most violent British films

I've ever seen.

One of the darkest British films

I think I've ever seen.

I think it was an example

that Britain actually
can do film noir

as well as the Americans.

Not as often, but occasionally.

And this one caused an
awful lot of trouble.

The Daily Mirror said that
nobody should go and see it,

and the New South
Wales in Australia

banned it entirely.

It was a film about a truly
unprecedented performance.

The rapacious, cold-eyed
hood, Pinkie Brown,

and the lengths to which
he's willing to go,

offered a truly compelling
and modern study

of the nature of evil.

Pinkie, stick
your minces on that.

'Every weekend, those
people who can afford the money

'and spare the time, escape from
the great built-up area of London.

'By train and coach,
by car and bicycle,

'they make their way to the
green of the countryside

'and the tang of the sea.

'The worries of the week's work
fade into the freedom of the air,

'if only for a couple of days.'

It's a good place for a m*rder,
Brighton's Palace Pier in 1935.

Amongst the jostling crowds

who have flocked in from
London to take in the sea air,

people are enjoying all the simple
pleasures the resort has to offer.

The shows, the amusement
arcades, the gaudy attractions.

The irony is wicked.

Reporter Fred Hale
knows he's in trouble.

His newspaper article
has exposed a local g*ng,

and now they are coming for him.

Hello, Fred.

I said hello, Fred.

We've been looking for
you for a long time, Fred.

I'm not Fred. That don't
make any difference.

One of Britain's most
celebrated novelists,

Graham Greene's best known
story was published in 1938,

though set three years before.

Brighton Rock mixed the thrills

of what he would classify
as an entertainment

with a familiar examination
of sin and morality,

themes fuelled by the Catholic
faith he had adopted in 1926.

Few novels capture the anxiety
of British life like this.

On one level, it is
a crime thriller.

Below that, it is an
exploration of morality.

It is also, in a funny sort of
way, a very perverse love story.

All of these things
are brought together

in an extraordinary
way by Greene

and he wraps them up in something
that is also a social document.

You get a feeling of the
time, it's absolutely amazing,

of 1935, between the wars,

of what Brighton in particular,

but also Britain was like.

Graham Greene is not only one
of Britain's finest novelists,

he's also one of its most
successful contributors to cinema.

There've been over 42 screenplays
written based on his novels.

He was a number of
things all at once.

He was a journalist, he was a
reviewer, he was a novelist,

he was a screenwriter,
and he was also a spy.

All of these different
facets all combined

to make him one of the
finest storytellers

that you will find in
the English language.

He has an ability to understand

different worlds,
different characters

but also, the pace of his
plotting is absolutely phenomenal.

In the summer of 1936,
he was working for

a very fashionable but short-lived
magazine called Night And Day,

where he was the
literary editor.

At the same time, he
was writing novels.

He had produced a thriller entitled
A g*n For Sale, about a hitman,

and he had his eye on the news.

And a particular story was
filling the British newspapers

in the summer of 1936.

And this was an
extraordinary g*ng outrage

at the racetrack in Lewes, in
Sussex, not far from Brighton,

and 30 men descended
on two bookies.

So when Graham Greene wrote
his book Brighton Rock,

he modelled the gangster on
Darby Sabini and his g*ng

who came down from
Clerkenwell in London,

primarily for the racetrack

because they were involved
in protection of bookmakers,

particularly at racetracks.

The whole great problem with
bookmakers at racetracks,

was involved in legislation

and which prohibited betting
away from racecourses.

So what happened at the racecourses,
close to the action, was crucial,

and they could make £4,000 or so

from a race meeting at Brighton.

£4,000... well over
£200,000 in today's money.

A lot of money involved.

And the gangs would
come down from London

and they would
"protect", if you like,

the bookmakers on their pitches.

Reporter Fred Hale, played with
clammy desperation by Alan Wheatley.

He is tracked from the train
station to the seafront,

swerving between the
banks of day trippers,

leaping on buses,
trying to stay alive.

So there you are, Fred. WOMAN:
You said you hadn't got a friend.

That's the trouble,
you can't believe Fred.

This is my friend
Molly. Hello.

Pleased to meet you. Come on,
Fred, what about that appointment?

No, I'm not coming.

I don't know him.
My name's not Fred.

Now, take it easy, Fred.

We're all going for a walk, see?

What I think the Boultings
capture so vividly,

certainly in the first
half of Brighton Rock,

is the kind of chaotic
nature of the seaside resort.

That these people have
come from London... Mm.

..and they've come to spend money,
they've come to have a good time,

and they're lax.

They've kind of had too
much to drink and eat

and they're open to all
the local criminality

who might want to
prey on them. Oh, yes.

And I think, especially
the opening sequence,

there's something of
the fairground about it.

You hear the shrill
nature of the rides.

Yeah, yeah. Everything
feels just a bit too much.

What you don't get a sense of is

the actual residents of
Brighton, do you? No.

You don't really know what
they think about all this,

but you do understand

that the place is not
quite as it should be.Yeah.

'Brighton Rock was hardly an
advert for this seaside resort'.

The council only granted
the production leeway

to sh**t on location on
the promise of a disclaimer

that declared the crime wave
was a thing of the past.

The sensation of the
century! Come along! Come along!

I think I wanna pop back, deary.
But you said you wouldn't leave me!

Only for a minute. I left my hanky
on the seat. That's all, dear.

You can have mine. But that hasn't
got sentimental associations.

Now look here, dear. You get
two tickets and I'll be back.

Make 'em return!

The opening sequence of
Brighton Rock is, if anything,

even more riveting than
the opening chapter

of Graham Greene's
original novel.

Then, the screenwriter in
question was Graham Greene.

Director John Boulting's editing
is like a racing heartbeat.

Events could almost
be in real time,

as we follow Hale's attempts
to escape his inevitable fate,

the g*ng finally cornering their
terrified quarry on the pier,

despite thousands of
oblivious witnesses.

Right, come along! Roll up!
Walk this way! Come along, please.

Come along, please! Only
six seconds of horror!

Come on! Have a basinful
of Dante's Inferno!

Only a tenner a time!
Children half price!

The sensation of the century!
Come along! Come along!

John and Roy Boulting, better
known as the Boulting brothers,

deserve to be placed
alongside the likes of

David Lean and Carol Reed.

Both had made documentaries
during World w*r II,

Roy for the army film
unit, John for the RAF.

Richard Attenborough
had appeared

in John's portrait of a
b*mber crew, Journey Together.

The Boulting brothers were
socially minded filmmakers,

keen to imbue their
films with a message.

John and Roy Boulting were a
producer-director pair of brothers.

One would produce,
one would direct.

It was never entirely
clear which would do which.

It was a very amorphous pairing.
Basically, they would both do both.

They started out, before
the Second World w*r,

very politically motivated.
John went to Spain

and fought in the International
Brigades against fascism.

And when they
joined the military,

John went into the
RAF filmmaking unit,

and Roy went into the
army filmmaking unit,

and they were making
very anti-n*zi films,

some of which were too extreme,
even for the British military.

So, they explored a particular
kind of social realism.

They wanted to
tell real stories,

true stories, in an
almost documentary style.

And certainly the films
that they were making

during the Second World
w*r were like that.

John Boulting came across Richard
Attenborough, for instance,

when he was making a
film about a b*mber,

really following a b*mber's
night out over Europe.

And Richard Attenborough
was the star of that,

but it was half
documentary, half drama.

So, during the Second World w*r,
they forged a particular approach

to filmmaking, which was to show
the real life of real people.

When they came out of
the Second World w*r,

they set up a film company
together, intending to tell

that kind of story, to achieve
a kind of social realism.

But at the same time,
tell thrilling stories,

stories of political
corruption, stories of crime,

and show the underbelly
of Britain, if you like.

Only a tenner a
go! Children half price!

The kiddies love it! Come
along! Come along!

Roll up! Roll up!

Come along! Come along!
Dante's Inferno! This way!

Roll up, this way! Walk
up, walk up, walk up!

John Boulting, the director,

he brings a really
interesting style to the film,

which you could
call British noir.

Cos on the one hand,
it's very realistic.

It's almost
documentary-like... Yes.

..in its coverage of
Brighton and holidaymakers.

At the same time,
it's very stylised.

It's an exceptional film.

And when I first saw it, I
was quite shocked by it...

and I didn't realise
how good it was,

until years later,
I saw it again.

I've seen it three
times, I think, now.

Each time it's got
better and better.

I really think it's
an outstanding film.

I think a lot of
critics did at the time.

Yeah. They thought it
was exciting and good,

but there was a lot
of opposition to it.

They thought, "Ooh, we can't be as
violent as the Americans," you know?

Do you think Graham Greene has
something cinematic in his writing?

Oh, I think so.

I mean, I don't think he always
likes what's done with his films.

And he didn't like the
ending of this one,

but he's very cinematic
in his writing.

I think Terence Rattigan
helped a lot too.

'The Boulting
brothers first turned

'to fashionable playwright,
Terence Rattigan

'to adapt the
bestselling novel'.

They knew they would have to tread
carefully with the British censor,

with what was a
dark, violent story,

where the villain
was the protagonist,

and featuring one of the bleakest
endings ever put in print.

But Rattigan's racier tone and
happy ending felt contrived,

so they returned to the
source, Greene himself,

to rewrite the script.

Greene would daringly keep to
the spirit of his own novel.

Sharply dressed gangsters
wielding coshes and razors,

the seething undercurrent
of sin and guilt,

and the cruel
manipulation of a waitress

by the pathological Pinkie.

Greene wrote most of the script,

although it's not
exactly credited to him.

I've reviewed the
correspondence,

it's quite clear that the
final version of the script

was largely Graham
Greene's own work.

So, that film is a
collaborative effort.

It's a very strong film, with
the young Richard Attenborough

really excelling as Pinkie.

And, of course, the atmosphere
being very stark, very noir...

and again, a sort of quiet
masterpiece came of it.

Well, the extraordinary thing
about the Boulting brothers is that

one thinks of them as
social realist filmmakers

who made social realist
comedies or satires.

And so, it's rather sobering
to be reminded of the fact

that they made Brighton Rock,
which is certainly not a comedy.

In fact, Brighton Rock
might be considered to be

the first and greatest
of British film noir.

Certainly, it has
never been superseded,

and its influence is still
being felt decades later.

They were experienced, they had
already established themselves

as proper filmmakers
with a social conscience.

They were very, very
keen to make films

that had some almost
documentary meaning to them.

They were interested in
society. They were interested in

actually exposing
the ills of society,

as well as looking at
the different classes.

They had a certain commitment,
a social commitment,

and this was both
of them together.

They were an
extraordinary double act.

It's a film that's
very sharp tongued

and difficult to comprehend,
really... Yes, yeah.

..as a crime feature.

And it brought a lot of
other films, you know,

which we now know. Get
Carter and stuff like that,

which definitely were probably
influenced by Brighton Rock.

Yeah, the whole
British gangster genre.

Come on lady, try your skill.
Don't be afraid, don't be bashful.

Got the time on you, Bill? You
can see the clock, can't you?

I don't stand for
phony alibis, see?

That's alright, Bill,
I only wanted to know.

Quarter past one.

The intimidation that was
imposed by these gangs

was really serious.

People would be absolutely
frightened to report

what had happened to the police.

And to some extent,
they were justified

because very often
the courts would allow

prisoners who got charged
to be out on bail.

When they were out on bail,
there was intimidation

and bribery that was
going to undermine

the criminal justice system.

And very often, the punishments,

when people were convicted,
were only relatively minor.

So this was going on,
whilst on the seafront

the families were
coming down from London

for very brief periods of escape

from the slum
conditions they were in,

looking to just have a few moments
on the beach with their picnic.

So you've got these
very contrasting worlds.

Brighton had long since stopped
being a fashionable resort

where you saw the wealthy go

to entertain themselves, as it had
been when it first started out.

This was kind of a seedy town.
It was the town where you'd go

and you knew that the hotel clerk
wouldn't ask if you were married.

You could sign in as Mr and Mrs
Smith and have a dirty weekend away.

It was well known for this.
This was a running joke,

that Brighton would be where
you went to have your affair.

So it was a very seedy, and
yet, ostensibly attractive,

regency seaside resort.

So Graham Greene,
and indeed the film,

play on these three
versions of Brighton.

The very stylish Hotel
Cosmopolitan in the film.

The fun-loving
families on the beach.

And behind the scenes,
in the alleyways

and on the racecourses, the
gangsters and the th*gs,

who are up to all
sorts of mischief.

Brown? Brown?

The inspector wants a word round
at the station. Right, come along.

Next time tell him to
send a sergeant for me.

Perhaps he'll come himself
next time, old man. Very funny.

Brighton had its own police force,
Brighton Borough Police Force.

It had its own chief constable

and probably about 200
officers, something like that.

Very much concerned with looking
after their local problems

and probably, the police force,

rather too comfortable and cosy
with some of the businesses.

In 1953, not long after the
end of the Second World w*r,

the chief constable was
prosecuted for corruption,

with a couple of
his senior officers.

And corruption, in a
sense, spread to some parts

of the Brighton Police
from the racecourse

or from elements from London
and criminal elements elsewhere.

It rather lost its reputation
and certainly had a seedy side,

which I think Graham
Greene latched onto

when he was writing
Brighton Rock.

Here, take your ruddy prize and hop
it. What do you want, chocolates?

I don't eat chocolates.
Cigarettes? Don't smoke.

Here, give me the doll, the
one with the yellow hair.

Reminds me of church, Bill.

There was no need to do
it, Pinkie, no need at all.

What made you do it?

You put a rope around our
necks, that's what you've done.

Poor devil, he didn't
stand a chance.

Wasn't necessary.

I can't swallow this muck.
Let me have a drink, Pinkie.

Not today. Go on, eat.

I'll be as sick a dog.
Oh, be sick, then.

Are the cards alright, Dallow?
We gave the cards to Spicer.

Did you put 'em out alright?
Course I put 'em out.

I don't see why you're so
worried about the cards.

You don't see much, do ya?

They're an alibi, aren't they?

They prove he kept to his
programme and died after two.

In the '30s, Brighton was
an exotic, raffish place,

at least on the surface.

As the film progresses,
the resort is revealed

as a dank, unlikable place.

A labyrinth of backstreets
and run-down boarding houses,

including the one the
g*ng use as a base.

The film is shot with a
mix of documentary realism

and dramatic
lighting and framing

that epitomised film noir.

Brighton gets
smaller and smaller

as Pinkie becomes entrapped
in his desperate plans.

Brighton started off
as the place where

the future King George IV
built Brighton Pavilion.

That's about 1787.

The racecourse was built
around about the same time.

It was a very desirable
place to go, and a resort.

But gradually, perhaps
through the Victorian times,

when a lot more
people came there,

it rather lost its reputation.

I think this sort of period

up to the Second World
w*r and afterwards,

was a period when,
let's say in America,

Al Capone was
operating in Chicago.

There was a feeling that
gangsters and protection

was perhaps a natural
order of things.

The police were sort of demoralised,
underpaid, understaffed.

A lot of problems arising from
the w*r in one way or another.

A lot of firearms left over
from people bringing g*ns back

from their wartime service,
and a lot of violence.

So I think communities
were generally unsettled

and the legislation to do
with prevention of crime

wasn't as it is today.

What's fascinating about the way
Brighton Rock is actually filmed

is that it uses several
different kinds of techniques.

Filmed on location, first
of all, filmed in Brighton.

The opening sequence is a chase.

Boulting actually placed
cameras, hidden cameras,

all over the route that
he was going to take.

So, all the people who are
milling around are real people.

They're real tourists. They didn't
know they were being filmed.

This gives it an incredible sense
of almost semi-documentary feel,

it's cinema verite.

But later on,

and certainly as the film
moves in more closely

and more insular
into the actual g*ng,

the house, the rooming
house that they're in

is something that could've been
out of David Lean's Oliver Twist.

It could be Fagin's
den, actually.

It is so expressionist.

A rotting, ghastly place.

And all the men in
it, not just the g*ng,

but also the guy who
lives below them,

who is blind, as it happens,

seem to be part
of another world.

Another era, almost.

Which table was it, Spicer?

Right of the door, the one
with the flowers. What flowers?

How do I know what
flowers? Yellow flowers.

Pinkie, don't go.

Brighton Rock is two stories.

It's the story of the
gangsters and their world,

but it's also the story of
sort of an anti-love affair

between Rose, a very
innocent, naive waitress

and Pinkie, the gangster.

Rose is perhaps a witness.

She's not aware that
she's a witness.

She's seen something which
could, if it came to it,

show that the g*ng had
m*rder*d a newspaper reporter.

And so Pinkie decides
that he's going to

find out what she knows
and try to persuade her

that it's too dangerous for
her to talk to the police,

to talk to anyone about a
particular event on a day where

a g*ng member came to her restaurant
and left a card on the table.

You'll never guess what I
found here only 10 minutes ago.

One of Kolley Kibber's
cards worth 10 shillings.

The other girls said I was
a fool not to challenge him.

Why didn't you?
I never thought!

It wasn't a bit
like his photograph.

Maybe the card had
been there all morning.

Oh, no. I'd just changed
the cloth before he come in

cos the other customer
upset his coffee.

Maybe you just didn't
look at him close.

Oh, I always look at you
close. Customer, I mean.

You see, I'm... I'm new
and I get a bit scared.

I wouldn't want to do
anything to offend.

Like standing here talking
while you want a cup of tea.

Well, that's alright, don't go
away. I like a girl who's friendly.

In every sense of the word,

Pinkie required a
sensational performance.

Attenborough had actually
played the role before

in the 1943 stage production
at London's Garrick Theatre.

However, the Boultings claimed
it was his 1942 film debut

as the callow deserter
from In Which We Serve

that convinced them he
was right for the part.

And it does prove that
Richard Attenborough is

a very good actor,
given the right parts.

He was often given
sort of noble parts

or playing, latterly, Father
Christmas all the time.

Yeah. But this
one, my goodness.

He's extremely good as this vicious
little gangster in Brighton.

And it's so startling, if
you think the film is 1947,

to have a lead
character as that...

kind of evil,
almost. Yes, yes.

You don't root for the lead man.
He's the k*ller in the story.

No. I mean, it's better than...

anything James Cagney
did, in that way.

He really was evil, wasn't he?

Sit down.

Look, I, uh...

I like you, Rose,

and I wanna warn you, see?

This fella, Fred Hale, got
mixed up in things. What things?

Don't matter what things.

Look, you forget all about
the fellow who left the card.

He's dead. You've got the money.

Alright. Anything you say.

You can call me
Pinkie if you like.

That's what my friends call me.

Pinkie.

Pinkie is very young.
He's in his late teens.

He's an unlikely
leader for this group.

The leader of the g*ng,
Kite, has been betrayed.

And so leadership has fallen,

almost by default

to the fiercest and most intelligent
of the followers in this small g*ng.

But he's facing very long odds

against much more
powerful g*ng leaders,

not least among them Colleoni, the
man who was modelled on Sabini.

Very, very few writers had
ever managed to achieve

the sheer glacial,
psychopathic character

that Pinkie emerged as.

And certainly, very few actors
had actually ever done it before,

because Richard
Attenborough's Pinkie Brown is

one of the landmarks
of cinematic villainy.

It is an extraordinary performance,
however you look at it.

He is supposedly

a man of Catholic faith.

He is supposedly psychotic,

and yet none of this is obvious.

It's all embedded in the
way he looks, behaves,

and above all, talks.

There's something
unknowable about Pinkie

and there's even less
knowable about him

in the film than
there is in the book.

Pinkie was his
greatest challenge.

Attenborough was 24, but
convinces you he was 17.

He threw himself into the part,

training with his beloved Chelsea
Football Club to lose weight,

learning to limit his
facial expressions.

But he's not inhuman.
He's desperate to survive.

Greene loved his performance.

How the actor suggests so
much more than we ever learn.

This is a performance
before method acting

has really taken
off in Hollywood,

and when cinema acting
was coming from the stage.

And cinema acting was
quite big at that point.

There was quite large
gestures on screen.

Richard Attenborough
brings this stillness,

this absolute rigid
stillness to Pinkie.

Everything is taking
place behind the eyes.

The most he'll do is play
with a piece of string,

making a cat's cradle.

His stillness is terrifying,
and his silence is terrifying.

So when people turn to
him and he says nothing,

that's when you're
most scared of him.

So the presence that Richard
Attenborough brings to this,

it's a new form of acting,
I think, at that point.

I mean, in a way, he's
the first method actor.

He's someone who manages to
internalise the conflicts of Pinkie,

play Pinkie with
his heart and soul,

without needing a theoretical
process to get there.

He just knows how to
do it. And this is

an amazing piece of
cinematic performance.

And I think that
Attenborough, as you say,

he's often seen as a cuddly,
kind of "luvvie" character.

Maybe he cultivated that
in his later career.

But that first half of his
career, he was very good at

darker characters,
cowardly characters.Yeah.

The difficult roles, as it
were. None more so than Pinkie.

No, he's an excellent actor,

and when he made his films,

he got very good
acting from everybody.

But Pinkie is a...

well, I don't know,
it's a crime story

which gets absolutely into
the place in which it's set.

Brighton. Brighton,
of course. Yes.

Holiday making, lovely place.

But underneath
there is a horrible,

g*ng-ridden
subculture... Yeah.

..which nobody
really knows about.

'This is a Brighton
of shifting moods.

The seaside haven never
feels comfortable.'

It's too hot, too crowded,
or caught in a downpour.

The rides on the pier are
shrill and unsettling.

The local singers off-key.

The sense of food
and drink sickening.

This is the uneasy
atmosphere of Greene-land.

Even when Pinkie parlays
with rival mobster Colleoni

in the classy
Cosmopolitan Hotel,

the confusion and
bustle are ever-present.

You think my mob's
too small for you?

I employ a great many people.

Graham Greene feared that
the film wouldn't be any good.

But when the film was finally
complete and he saw it,

he felt that the directing and
the producing had been very good.

The film work was very
good, the camera work,

and finally, that
Richard Attenborough

had really captured
the essence of Pinkie.

You know an awful lot of
things, don't you? I like to.

Come on, let's go inside out of
this rain and hear some real music.

It's lovely here.

You're soft enough, aren't you?

How old are you? Seventeen.

So am I.

You ever been in
love? Oh, yes.

You would've. You're green.

You don't know what
it's all about.

I've watched it. I know love.

You're a Catholic? Yes.

Brighton Rock
established Graham Greene

as a vital force in
British filmmaking,

both as a source of stories
and as a screenwriter.

Can any writer boast
three screenplays

in three successive years

as good as Brighton Rock, The
Fallen Idol, and The Third Man?

Indeed, they form an
unofficial trilogy,

sharing themes of guilt,
morality, loyalty, and betrayal.

He has more swagger
and eloquence,

but there are definite shades
of Pinkie in the amoral games

of Harry Lime in The Third Man.

You are never quite sure what kind
of story it is you're following.

At the beginning, it's
a m*rder story.Yeah.

Then it's a kind of
cover-up story about gangs.

Then it becomes a sort
of anti-love story.

This kind of relationship
between Pinkie and Rose,

Carol Marsh and Richard
Attenborough's characters,

becomes the dominant
thread. Yeah.

While the outside of the story,
you have Hermione Baddeley as Ida,

who is almost like
an amateur sleuth,

like a Miss Marple
kind of character. Yes.

The blowsy, musical
star or semi-star,

who's determined to find out
exactly what Pinkie is about.

But Pinkie's very
interesting cos,

though he's undoubtedly
an evil psychopath,

he knows he is. Mm.

He sort of wants redemption
in a funny sort of way.

That's very Catholic. Yes.

♪ But you know, that's very
Graham Greene, isn't it?

Yeah. That even
though 95% of him

is awful... Yeah.

..there's 5% of him who knows it

and is trying to
somehow redeem himself.

Yeah. He never
manages it, of course.

Didn't you get my message?

It's my half day. I was
coming to find you, Pinkie.

What message? Well, I phoned you at
Frank's and told him to tell you.

Told who? Sounded like
the man who left the card.

He's dead, you read it in
the paper, didn't you? Dead.

It doesn't matter. What matters is
someone was in asking questions.

A bogey? A woman.
What did she want?

What the man who left the
card looked like. Well?

I didn't tell her a thing.

She is an incredibly
naive, very beautiful,

very wide-eyed, very
impressionable young girl

who hasn't had a boyfriend,
who is bullied at work, really.

She finds her workmates are
always having a go at her.

It's very early in her career.
She really is very naive

and very new to the world.

She is a Catholic. She's very,
very driven by her faith.

She believes wholeheartedly.

And when she meets Pinkie,
who takes her off to the pier

and talks to her, very
clearly telling her

in effect that he has sinned,

but, she discovers,
he is also a Catholic.

Initially, you wonder whether
her faith will, you know,

be sufficient to
keep his secret.

But in fact, the fact
that he talks about

how he believes in Catholicism,

"These atheists know
nothing," he says,

and talks about
hellfire and damnation.

She knows that he's a believer,

and that begins to
propel her towards him.

Now, perhaps conventionally
in a gangster film,

what this would lead to is the
redemption of the gangster.

He finds a truly good woman.

Someone who is prepared to
lie for him, cover up for him,

who is prepared to sacrifice
her innocence to keep him safe,

but Pinkie cannot love her.

In fact, the more she gives
to him, the more he hates her.

And so you watch him descend
into this almost repulsion

for the woman he's going to
eventually ask to marry him,

because a wife can't give
evidence against her husband.

Graham Greene began writing
Brighton Rock as a pure thriller.

After about 50 pages,
he discovered that

the great issue in the book is

sin, redemption and
the mercy of God.

Because Young Pinkie, who
is the villain, or the hero,

the anti-hero of the book,
is a broken-up Catholic.

He was brought up a Catholic
and he believes in hell,

has very little hope of heaven.

Maintains a slight sense that a
deathbed repentance is possible

"between the stirrup and the
ground," a line that's repeated.

An old proverb that if
you fall off a horse,

there can be repentance between
the stirrup and the ground.

The phrase is spoken
at the end by a priest.

"You do not know my
child, nor anyone,

"the appalling strangeness
of the mercy of God".

Both Graham Greene and
the Boulting brothers were

sort of collaborating on
something. Bringing together

various senses and feelings
that they had accumulated

in the course of the w*r,

and they were the perfect
partnership for this.

They were sort of all putting
it into this melting pot,

in a crucible, so that it would
come out as Brighton Rock.

In Greene's case, he'd
been in the Secret Service,

he'd seen the evil
that men can do.

He'd had probably his
own personal experiences

that gave him a fairly
dark view of humanity.

Greene was always struggling
with his sense of faith.

He became a Catholic in 1925,

and although he didn't like to be
thought of as a Catholic writer,

he thought himself as a writer
who happened to be a Catholic.

Nonetheless, Brighton Rock is
certainly the first of his books

that actually dealt seriously
with a crisis of faith

and certainly in a
very, very complex way.

And to actually put
that into a film

so that it was
popular entertainment,

and he thought of Brighton
Rock as popular entertainment,

is absolutely extraordinary.

Of course, the Boultings were
exactly the right people to do it

because during the w*r,
they had been documenting.

They had worked on films

that actually showed
various aspects of w*r.

They knew evil.
Even before the w*r,

one of their first films, Pastor
Hall, was an anti-n*zi movie,

so they had that
sort of conscience.

Who is Pinkie?

Is he a delinquent borne
of urban depravity?

Is he a k*ller by
his very nature?

Is it written through him
like those sticks of rock?

As Ida says, "Bite
one all the way down,

"you'll still read 'Brighton'.
That's human nature".

The concept of damnation
hangs over the film.

Pinkie is only certain of hell.

"Don't you believe in
heaven?" implores Rose.

"Maybe", he says, as
if it's unimportant.

The bigger question
that Greene asks is

how could a creature as heartless
as Pinkie exist within God's mercy?

I think that
Richard Attenborough

has never done
better than Pinkie.

Yes. And it was a
risk for him, I think.

And astonishing, I think, if you
think just across the whole film.

And I like to think that in a way,
if you think of even forward to

something like Psycho
and Anthony Perkins

and the kind of roles
that came afterwards.Yeah.

You think, well, it sort
of began with Pinkie,

that idea of a kind of
examination of psychopathology

and that kind of character.
Different ways, but...

Dirk Bogarde in
The Blue Lamp. Yes.

They were all... It was kind of a
style of character that emerged.

Yeah. And I think it
begins with Pinkie.

Yes, I think so.

I think Pinkie is really...

..really a landmark
in British filmmaking.

I believe it is. At the time
it wasn't thought to be.

But I think it is,
really. Yeah, definitely.

I wonder what it was
like watching it...

..in places like Brighton.
That's an interesting question.

What must it have been like
in Brighton at the time

to watch the movie? Yeah.

After all, Brief Encounter
was roaring with laughter,

sailors roaring with laughter at
the English accents and everything.

I doubt if the Brighton audience
was roaring with laughter.

No, not at all. Think they
must've been rather shocked.

Is anything wrong, Pinkie?

Everything.

Let's go on the pier.