★ 9 / 10
Prison Noir! This is Westgate Penitentiary, the Warden
John Chard
Prison Noir! This is Westgate Penitentiary, the Warden is a weak man, the prison is practically run by the cruel and highly ambitious Captain Munsey. But the…
Prison Noir!
This is Westgate Penitentiary, the Warden is a weak man, the prison is practically run by the cruel and highly ambitious Captain Munsey. But the prisoners are no walk overs, they deal their own justice to those that don't tow the line, tired and fed up of mistreatment, and fuelled by the Munsey influenced suicide of a popular inmate, the prisoners, led by big Joe Collins, plot a break out, the fear of failure not even an option.
Brute Force is a cracking moody picture directed with innovation by Jules Dassin and starring Burt Lancaster (brilliant as Joe Collins), Hume Cronyn (Munsey), Charles Bickford (Gallagher) and lady support (shown in excellent flashbacks) from Yvonne De Carlo, Ann Blyth, Ella Raines and Anita Colby. We open in the pouring rain at the monolithic gates of Westgate Penitentiary, Dassin's camera looking up at the gate like some foreboding warning, William Daniels black and white photography is stark and making its point, all this as Miklos Rozsa's score thunders in our ears, it's clear that this is going to be a mean and moody prison picture.
So it proves to be, sure all the formula traits that lace most prison films are in here, but Dassin and his team have managed to harness an oppressive feel to put us the viewer within the walls of Westgate as well. This is a bleak place, there are six men to a prison cell, their only chance of staying sane is memories of loved ones and a unified spirit to not be put upon by the vile Munsey, we are privy to everything, we ourselves are part of the furniture. Brute Force thankfully doesn't disappoint with its ending, the tension has been built up perfectly, the mood is set, so when the ending comes it's explosive and a truly fitting finale to what has been a first rate prison drama. 9/10
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★ 9 / 10
Brutality, Futility & Despair
seymourblack-1
This powerful drama is totally uncompromising and provides a convincing account of what life is like in a prison which is being run in a particularly brutal…
This powerful drama is totally uncompromising and provides a convincing account of what life is like in a prison which is being run in a particularly brutal and autocratic manner. The consequence for the inmates is that they live in an oppressive and overcrowded environment where hard labour, poor quality food and harsh treatment are the norm. Furthermore, they are also subjected to a cruel system which leads to many of them being abused, tortured or even killed as a result of actions taken by the officials in charge.
As well as the extreme brutality that they experience, the prisoners also suffer the deep level of despair which comes from the knowledge that there's absolutely nothing they can do to improve their circumstances, as even the prospects for rehabilitation and parole are taken away from them. The sheer desperation of these men who can't get away from either their pasts or their current tribulations inevitably creates a need for an escape plan to be developed and Joe Collins (Burt Lancaster), the leader of the convicts in cell R17 is a man who has more reasons than most for wanting to get out.
Joe is released from a spell in solitary at the same time as the body of one of his cell-mates (who was a victim of the regime's evil practices) is being taken away from the prison. Joe's wheelchair bound wife is also suffering from a life threatening illness and is not prepared to go ahead with the urgent surgery she needs unless Joe is with her. He wants Gallagher (Charles Bickford), who is the editor of the prison newspaper, to help with the organisation of a breakout but Gallagher refuses because he believes that he has a chance of being given parole in the near future.
The prison Warden's methods are criticised by his superiors and he's swiftly replaced by Captain Munsey (Hume Cronyn) who is the sadistic Chief Guard whose lust for power has finally won him the top job. The practices that Munsey puts into operation to achieve greater discipline include the indefinite suspension of parole hearings and this leads to Gallagher changing his mind and getting on board with the attempt to escape.
Dr Walters (Art Smith) is the ageing prison physician who drinks too much and despairs about the amount of brutality that he sees. When he openly accuses Munsey of torturing the prisoners, he gets struck to the floor by his disdainful colleague in an act which highlights both Munsey's intolerance and his pleasure in inflicting pain.
The escape plan is eventually put into action but because Munsey had already been tipped off by one of the inmates, the element of surprise is lost and what follows turns out to be an incredibly violent full scale riot with the men on both sides suffering a huge number of injuries and fatalities and the whole endeavour proving to be an absolute failure.
The characters in this story are very memorable. Joe is tough, full of controlled anger and completely focused on what he wants to achieve. Munsey is vicious, merciless and manipulative as he fosters and uses a network of informers and even uses psychological methods which, in one case, leads to an inmate's suicide. Gallagher's discretion, integrity and diplomacy gain him the respect of both the guards and the convicts and Dr Walters is a humanitarian whose disenchantment with the system is profound. Lancaster and Cronyn are outstanding in their roles and the performances of the rest of the cast are also consistently good.
The allegorical nature of the story is strong as it shows Munsey as a dictatorial monster who plays Wagner recordings as he tortures a helpless prisoner and some of the Nazi imagery is also quite striking. Bearing in mind the timing of the movie's release and the political leanings of its director, none of this is particularly shocking. What is more surprising is how this kind of depiction of the prison's officials was sanctioned under the strict censorship constraints which were in force at the time.
"Brute Force" isn't a story of good guys and bad guys as not all the guards are bad and clearly not all the convicts are good. Both groups are perpetrators of appalling brutality as the prisoners' punishment of stool pigeons provides a couple of the most sickeningly cruel scenes in the film. What it really illustrates most strongly is how much hopelessness the people in the institution feel, how futile the self perpetuating brutality is and how inevitable it is that (to quote the philosophical Dr Walters) "nobody escapes, nobody ever really escapes".
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