Brute Force (1947)

Film: Brute Force (1947)

Stars: Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Charles Bickford, Yvonne de Carlo, Ann Blyth, Anita Colby

Director: Jules Dassin

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Throughout the month of June we will be doing a Film Noir Movie Marathon, featuring fifteen film noir classics that I'll be seeing for the first time.  Reviews of other film noir classics are at the bottom of this article.

While one theme of the titles of this year's Film Noir Month is focused on "finishing off filmographies" as we watch movies from actors and directors that I've seen almost all of their film noir pictures (or we're getting much deeper cuts than usual), there are still both important directors that I have seen very few of their movies, as well as actual film noir classics that I've never gotten around to.  Of our English-language titles this year, no film stands out more as an "I can't believe you haven't seen that yet" title than Brute Force, a 1947 drama that generally is considered a standout in the genre.  It's also made by Jules Dassin, who made a number of well-considered film noir movies during this time frame, and I had, before catching Brute Force, only seen one of his pictures (1950's Night and the City).  Dassin grew up in the New York Theater world before moving to Hollywood, getting jobs as a director-for-hire working on projects starring Joan Crawford and Charles Laughton, before in the late 1940's starting to make genuinely good movies like Brute Force.  He was blacklisted in the 1950's, and spent much of the decade making films in Europe, including the two movies he's best-known for today: Rififi and Never on Sunday, the latter of which won him Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay.

(Spoilers Ahead) We will be watching two films from Jules Dassin this month, both noirs made prior to him getting blacklisted, and we're starting, as I said, with Brute Force, which was a vehicle for Burt Lancaster, who at the time was regularly appearing in film noir movies.  This is about a prison break, where Lancaster is portraying Joe Collins, a man stuck in jail as his wife Ruth (Blyth) is dying from a cancer that she won't treat with surgery unless Joe is by her side.  Given that he'll never escape the sadistic Captain Munsey (Cronyn), he coordinates with some of his fellow inmates in the prison to escape, and in the process, they all share what caused them to be in jail, in many cases either wrongful convictions or being born "on the wrong side of the tracks."  The film ends with a bit of a twist for 1947.  The men do get to escape, or at least they come close, but in the process Munsey kills many of them, going mad with power, and in a fight both he and Joe die.  The movie doesn't end there though, but with a soliloquy from character actor Art Smith playing the prison doctor, breaking the fourth wall and talking about the damage of a prison industrial complex where "no one gets out."

I'll be honest-it kind of makes sense that Brute Force is made by an alleged Communist because it's very liberal with its politics.  The movie's attacks on the prison system in America, and the way that it profits off of what is basically slave labor, is really ahead of its time.  Most of Brute Force, in fact, is ahead of its time.  The way that the production design (absolutely wonderfully cavernous prison recreation) feels like we're stuck in this world as an audience (our only looks outside of it come in the memories the men have), and is detailed and rich, and I loved the ending, with it giving us a lot more sour than I was anticipating for a movie about a decent (if embittered) man trying to get home to his dying wife.

The only thing that doesn't work for me is Lancaster.  I have said this many times on this blog before, but Burt Lancaster is not my favorite, and I think that while he doesn't get in the way of the story, he doesn't add enough either-a better actor would've made the main character a bit more two-dimensional.  But there is a fine piece of acting in the movie, and that's Hume Cronyn.  He plays this part ruthlessly, and perhaps crucially, very, very gay.  It's 1947 so the Hayes Code isn't going to allow him to say this, but it's obvious that he is sexually obsessed with controlling Lancaster's sweaty, shirtless Joe, and is using his power as a proxy for getting to well, fuck him.  You think that's me just reading into the movie, but watch it-it's very obviously there, and Cronyn's increasing insanity at not being able to achieve his desires is what makes the ending work.  Really good stuff, and it makes me excited for our next Dassin picture, which we'll get to in a few days.

1940's: Act of Violence, The Big Sleep, The Blue Dahlia, Blues in the Night, Born to Kill, Brighton Rock, Criss Cross, Crossfire, Cry Wolf, Daisy Kenyon, Dead Reckoning, Detour, Fallen Angel, The Fallen Idol, Force of Evil, Gilda, High Sierra, I Walk Alone, I Wake Up Screaming, The Killers, The Lady from Shanghai, Leave Her to Heaven, Ministry of Fear, Moonrise, Murder My Sweet, Nightmare Alley, Out of the Past, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Raw Deal, The Reckless Moment, Ride the Pink Horse, Scarlet Street, Sorry, Wrong Number, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Stranger on the Third Floor, They Drive By Night, They Won't Believe Me, Too Late for Tears, The Woman in the Window, The Woman on the Beach

1950's: Ace in the Hole, Affair in Trinidad, The Asphalt Jungle, Beat the Devil, The Big Combo, The Big Heat, The Blue Gardenia, The Breaking Point, The Burglar, Cast a Dark Shadow, The Crimson Kimono, Elevator to the Gallows, Gun Crazy, The Hitch-Hiker, House of Bamboo, In a Lonely Place, Julie, The Killing, Kiss Me Deadly, Lightning Strikes Twice, Murder by Contract, Night and the City, Odds Against Tomorrow, On Dangerous Ground, Pickup on South Street, The Prowler, Slightly Scarlet, Sudden Fear, Sweet Smell of Success, They Live By Night, While the City Sleeps

Neo-Noir: Blade Runner, Body Heat, Farewell My Lovely, Fargo, From Afar, The Late Show, The Long Goodbye, Lost Highway, Night Moves, Nightcrawler, Le Samourai