for noir films, this one is in the don’t miss category.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Possibly the best British noir film ever made, a film adapted from
the Graham Greene novel. It is a vicious story of a sadistic teenage baby
faced gangster, Pinkie Brown (Richard Attenborough), who works a protection
racket around the racecourses in the seaside resort of Brighton. The tourist
bureau was so afraid that this gloomy look at Brighton would scare off
tourists, that the film opens with a “crawl” telling what a safe and jolly
playground community Brighton now is.
At the lair of the 17-year-old Pinkie’s mob are his older henchmen,
who tell him that an unimportant journalist Kolley Kibber, ‘alias’ Fred
Hale (Wheatley), is visiting Brighton. Pinkie gets his picture in the newspaper
and the newspaper article mentions that his visit has to do with him passing
out cards in hidden spots that if found the finder will get paid for it.
Kollee inadvertently caused the death of a former Brighton gang leader,
Kite — the only person for whom Pinkie has ever felt affection for. Pinkie
decides to go after him with his mob and meets up with him in one of the
bars, where he puts a fright in him.
Kolley is trying to flee back to London after realizing that he is
being followed by Pinkie’s gang. In the bar seeking protection he tries
to get acquainted with a bosomy, beer-guzzling, loud-laughing singer, Ida
Arnold (Hermione Baddeley), who has a short engagement with one of the
shows performing on the boardwalk. She sees that Fred is scared out of
his wits and that he wants her to not leave his side. When Fred meets her
later on at the boardwalk and pays for some beach seats to get some sun
he begs her to stay with him, he even gives the woman who is short on cash
some money to buy tickets for the train so that they can go home together.
When she leaves him for a moment to get the tickets, Fred sees Pinkie’s
men coming for him and rushes into “The Ghost Train” ride to elude his
pursuers. Inside the tunnel Fred recognizes that his fellow passenger is
Pinkie. His body is later found washed up on the beach and the police rule
the death as a heart attack. But Pinkie is afraid that one of his men,
Spicer (Wylie Watson), while trying to help him, took Kibber’s cards and
placed one of them under a tablecloth in a restaurant, and this might come
back to haunt him if the police later on believe they are dealing with
a murder and a witness comes forward to recognize who put the card there.
The cunning young gangster wants absolutely no witnesses to his crime.
Meanwhile Ida is convinced that Fred was killed. She performs some
kind of magical ritual which convinces her of that, believing in this superstitious
practice over the conventional disciplines of knowledge: religion and science.
Ida goes to the police asking them to investigate this death as a murder
case, but they tell her that there is no evidence of that. She tells them,
I will go after the killer myself because “I believe in right and wrong.”
Ida becomes an allegorical figure, a do-gooder, who represents the
popular mass culture, a class of people Graham Greene had no love for.
In fact he is more sympathetic to the killer, no matter that he is a certifiable
maniac. While Pinkie is a psychopath who rejects all goodness in people
and enjoys inflicting pain on others, being a cross between a bully and
a cringing child afraid of the dark; but for Greene, at least, he stands
for something real—evil. In his twisted way, according to Greene, Pinkie
is a Catholic despite himself. For Greene, the church’s strict dogmas are
more real than Ida’s banal humanism.
Pinkie returns to the restaurant and strikes up a relationship with
the inexperienced 17-year-old waitress, Rose (Marsh), who is taken with
the bravado of Pinkie and falls in love with him, not caring how rotten
he is as long as he loves her.
Pinkie is overmatched by the big-time gangster in Brighton, Colleoni
(Goldner), who tells him there isn’t room for the two of them in Brighton,
warning Pinkie to stay away from his clients. Pinkie sees this as an opportunity
to knock off Spicer, as he warns the Colleoni gang about Spicer interfering
with their operation. At the racetrack they slice Spicer up, but Pinkie
also gets slashed in the face. Not realizing that Spicer escaped Pinkie
is told by his drunken, washed-up, crooked lawyer, Prewitt (Harcourt),
that Spicer is here to see him. In a rage, Pinkie tosses old man Spicer
over the banister to his death and gets Prewitt to swear that it was an
accident.
Pinkie is frightened about being uncovered and even though he can’t
stand Rose he decides to have the crooked lawyer fix it so that the underaged
girl could be legally married to him in a civil ceremony, therefore she
can no longer be a witness against him. Rose, being a Catholic, wanted
a church wedding and is late to the wedding ceremony having gone to church
to get sanctified.
Ida is now convinced that Rose is in danger from Pinkie and states,
“I’ve got to save her, even if she doesn’t want to be saved.” The film
turns into a suspension between melodrama and farce as Ida becomes the
amateur detective visiting Prewitt’s chaotic office, where from next door
there is heard loud music drowning out her conversation with him. She futilely
tries to convince him to turn Pinkie in for the two murders. This very
serious part of the film was also extremely comical. Prewitt’s only humanity
he has left is from quoting Shakespeare while the vulgar bar singer who
is trying to save the world from an evil she can’t even comprehend within
herself, tries to communicate with him but can’t. Ida is blind to what
goes for good taste and is consumed by what is popularly believed and assumed
to be right. He, on the other hand, is too far gone to do anything about
what is right or wrong in the world.
While walking on the boardwalk Rose decides that she wants an affirmation
from Pinkie that he loves her and seeing a voice message booth, urges Pinkie
to make a recording so that she will always have his voice on record. When
he goes into the booth, he shuts her out and starts to record: “What you
want me to say is I love you.” Instead, Pinkie goes into a diatribe telling
her how she disgusts him and how much he hates her. She holds onto this
as a wedding present, hoping to get a chance to listen to it even though
she doesn’t have a gramophone.
When Ida tracks down where Rose is honeymooning, she tells the young
bride that her husband killed two people. But Rose only cares that he loves
her, and tells Ida that people change and repent. Ida shoots back–”People
never change–I haven’t.”
Warning: spoiler to follow in next paragraph.
The persistent Ida runs into Pinkie’s crony Dallow (Hartnell) on
the boardwalk bar; he listens to what she says and he helps her only because
he warned Pinkie that he wants no harm to come to Rose. When he realizes
that Pinkie, in the driving rain, has taken Rose down to the end of the
pier and plans to kill her, he reluctantly calls the cops and gives chase
after Pinkie himself. They catch hold of Pinkie just as he has talked Rose
into a suicide pact, even though she believes suicide is a sin. She demonstrates
that she is willing to do anything for him. But when the police show up
Rose throws the gun in the water and Dallow comes after Pinkie, who stumbles
to his death by cowardly running and then falling off the pier onto the
ocean.
The last scene is one of those memorable ones that just can’t be
easily forgotten. It has a raw power that catches the dark side of human
nature as it unfolds so suddenly onscreen, even if the scene was changed
from the one in Greene’s novel to his utmost disappointment. After Pinkie’s
demise, the black waters by the pier dissolve into the last thing seen
and the next shot is in a brightly lit room in a Catholic shelter for pregnant
teens. A nun wearing lipstick is comforting the pregnant Rose, who feels
she should have died with her husband. She is crying out, “I don’t want
absolution!” Further saying, “I got his voice–I got proof of his love.”
The nun, looking at the phonograph by the girl’s side, says in a grave
voice, “There is always hope, it is in the air we breath. We have to hope
and pray. Love can bring about salvation.” When Rose puts the record on,
we have already heard what Pinkie said and wait to see her reaction, but
when she plays the record: “What you want me to say is I love you…” the
record gets stuck and plays that over and over, until the final shot of
the film is of the crucifix on the wall. Rose is seemingly elated to have
her love reaffirmed by such a positive proof. This cynical ending is perfect.
The filmmakers thought it could be construed as possibly a happy ending,
overcoming the general despair of the film. But the public didn’t see it
that way and the film was a failure at the box office.
The only weaknesses in the film were the awkward pacing of the story
and the over inflated role of Hermione Baddeley. It was a brassy portrayal
that detracted from the noir mood of the film. Richard Attenborough’s manic
performance as a psychopathic, androgynous character, who had violent mood
swings, was pulsatingly brilliant. His sadomasochistic relationship with
the naive Rose, coupled with dark shots of the seamy side of Brighton,
plus the expressionistic studio shots, gave the film a raw energy that
makes it more powerful than the usual gangster film. If you have any kind
of feel for noir films, this one is in the don’t miss category.