Graham Greene’s “Brighton Rock”: Novel and Film

(an impressive, surprisingly clear print of this one)

I taught the 1938 British novel in 1973 to English 20-1s (grade 11 academic). It was a fascinating study of evil (Pinkie Brown, small teenage gang boss) vs. innocence (Rose, the child-like waitress) with a sordid atmosphere of casual murders, betrayals, and loyalties, the latter notably Rose’s to Pinkie. This was a pretty unique world complete with a detective story subplot as Ida Arnold (a good-hearted floozie tracks Pinkie because she liked one of his victims). Along the way, Greene captures how the evil of the world corrupts and destroys love and innocence as well as how flawed human beings can be in many ways. Brighton Rock is also a well-done psychiatric case history and essay on moral Roman Catholic theology.

The 1947 B & W film that was made of this book is faithful to Greene’s text (playwright Terence Rattigan worked on the script) minus Rose’s pregnancy and Pinkie’s mismanaged vitriol in the climax. All else is well-done with numerous Brighton location scenes, the main episodes of the novel, the Kolley Kibber newspaper contest opening, and the minor character casting of the gang members, the police, the crooked gang lawyer, and the Italian big mob boss.

A young Richard Attenborough makes a suitably nasty, conniving, corrupt Pinkie. Carol Marsh makes a pathetically devoted Rose. The ever-buoyant Hermione Baddeley brings Ida to life. And Alan Wheatley effectively portrays the doomed reporter Fred whom Pinkie’s bunch had known before in a previous incarnation.

Whether you come to the book or movie first does not matter in the great scheme of things. Greene’s book oozes atmosphere and the reader gets easily caught up in the drama, crimes, and characters. He uses much of his trademark irony and creates much suspense in the opening and conclusion. The movie is definitely not remotely disappointing and well-worth seeking out.

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