Brighton Rock (1947) (Blu-ray) – The original classic gets a spruced up release

With the rebooted, 1964-set version of Graham Greene’s classic in cinemas, it’s a good moment to release the  Boulting Brothers’  1947 version on Blu-ray for the first time – and what a treat it is. It’s a fascinating comparison, with this black and white, wonderfully restored version pretty much winning every round, the one exception being the portrayal of Rose – Andrea Riseborough’s delicate, sad, fragile girl beating Carol Marsh’s too-glam girl hands down.

It was a very early portrayal – arguably the first – of Britain’s youth behaving badly on screen. There are no punts or boaters or silly-ass Englishmen here. Instead it’s set in a dreary, grey Brighton with a big undercurrent of violence and fear, with Dickie Attenborough’s Pinkie a marvelous portrayal of dead-eyed hatred, fear and knife-wielding psychosis. It’s a much stronger version than Sam Riley’s too-pretty version.

Pinkie’s nemesis is the formidable Ida (Baddeley), and the Boulting aren’t afraid to make her as loud, brassy and tarty as possible – one shot shows a gangster recoiling faced with her impressive bosom. Her inner steel though is always there, especially in a great scene where she tries to convince the police of Pinkie’s criminal ways after Kolly Kibber’s suspicious death.

It’s only Rose who lacks the new version’s inner sadness and fragility. Marsh is just way too cheery and smiley to suggest a girl so starved of attention she falls in love with someone who is clearly a cold-hearted gangster. It takes away the pathos of the film’s frantic final sequence on Brighton Pier, where Pinkie is persuading her to commit suicide while the police try and catch up with them. That sequence though is, like the rest of the film, perfectly shot and framed, in crisp black and white photography which has scrubbed up quite superbly on digital disc. The Boultings have a strange penchant for massive close-ups of people’s faces, perhaps inspired by the new cameras which gave depth of field, but overall it’s a marvellous-looking film. Unlike its new half-brother it’s actually filmed in Brighton – the new one was made in Eastbourne, which never quite convinces.

With this version Greene also came up with a clever new ending, which gives Rose hope with a clever technical twist. It’s somehow disappointing to see that the new version uses exactly the same trick, suggesting it really had run out of ideas.

A special mention has to be made too for Harcourt Williams’ wonderful portrayal of totally corrupt lawyer Prewitt, an actor who relishes every word in his script and moths them like the great actor he was. He’s incredibly funny, sad and obnoxious at the same time, quite a feat.

Overall verdict: Fresh, crisp print of a film rightly regarded as a landmark piece of British cinema, which every serious fan should own. Marvellous stuff.

Special Features:
Interview with Rowan Joffe (Director of 2010 version)
1954 NFT interview with Richard Attenborough and John Bouting

Reviewer: Mike Martin