Brute Force (1947)

Brute Force At Noir City, D.C.

"Brute Force" is a film that lives up to its title. It shows a brutal prison system and brutal social structure that creates it. Directed by a soon-to-be blacklisted Jules Dassin, "Brute Force" stars a young Burt Lancaster as convict Joe Collins, and Hume Cronyn as the sadistic prison guard, Captain Munsey. "Brute Force" was shown at the annual Noir City, D.C. film festival on the occasion of its 75th anniversary (1947) and in keeping with the festival's theme, "They Tried to Warn Us", of ongoing social issues in film noir. Film scholar Foster Hirsch introduced the film.

The film is set at a fictitious institution, Westgate Prison, and was partially inspired by a failed attempt at escape at Alcatraz. Burt Lancaster is the leader of a prison gang and is intent on escape to be with his wife who must undergo an operation for cancer. The film explores the unredeemable character of prison life through its characters, dark noir cinematography, dramatic score by Miklos Rozsa, and story. While it is melodramatic and over-the-top, the movie draws the viewer in. The film was intended as a progressive political statement and as an indictment of the social system. I was moved by the film without sharing in the underlying politics.

The film offers good characterizations of several inmates and of prison officials from the spineless warden to the well-meaning ineffectual prison doctor, to the sadistic guard. As always in noir and in life, it is a story of men and women. The heavily male prison environment is juxtaposed against four women on the outside each of whom is involved with one of the prisoners. The prison offers scenes of solitary confinement, of long cell and dinner lines, of prison work, of a terrible seeming accidental death, of the sadism of the chief guard and much more. The film works inexorably up to the escape attempt and its inevitable failure.

I have been an admirer of film noir for many years and look forward to the annual Noir City, D.C. festival which began in 2008. There is a cumulative effect in exploring noir and noir tinged films and in watching some of the special films in the style, such as "Brute Force". I was grateful to have the opportunity to see "Brute Force" as part of a film noir festival in the company of other lovers of film noir.

Robin Friedman