''Brute Force'' (aka ''Zelle R 17'') is a 1947 American

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...

film noir Film noir (; ) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American ' ...

directed by

Jules Dassin Julius "Jules" Dassin (December 18, 1911 – March 31, 2008) was an American film and theatre director, producer, writer and actor. A subject of the Hollywood blacklist in the McCarthy era, he subsequently moved to France, and later Greece, wher ...

, from a screenplay by

Richard Brooks Richard Brooks (May 18, 1912 – March 11, 1992) was an American screenwriter, film director, novelist and film producer. Nominated for eight Oscars in his career, he was best known for '' Blackboard Jungle'' (1955), '' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'' ...

with cinematography by William H. Daniels. It stars

Burt Lancaster Burton Stephen Lancaster (November 2, 1913 – October 20, 1994) was an American actor and producer. Initially known for playing tough guys with a tender heart, he went on to achieve success with more complex and challenging roles over a 45-yea ...

Hume Cronyn Hume Blake Cronyn Jr. OC (July 18, 1911 – June 15, 2003) was a Canadian-American actor and writer. Early life Cronyn, one of five children, was born in London, Ontario, Canada. His father, Hume Blake Cronyn, Sr., was a businessman and ...

Charles Bickford Charles Ambrose Bickford (January 1, 1891 – November 9, 1967) was an American actor known for supporting roles. He was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for '' The Song of Bernadette'' (1943), '' The F ...

,and

Yvonne De Carlo Margaret Yvonne Middleton (September 1, 1922January 8, 2007), known professionally as Yvonne De Carlo, was a Canadian-American actress, dancer and singer. She became a Hollywood film star in the 1940s and 1950s, made several recordings, and late ...

. This was among several noir films made by Dassin during the postwar period. The others were '' Thieves' Highway'', ''

Night and the City ''Night and the City'' is a 1950 film noir directed by Jules Dassin and starring Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney and Googie Withers. It is based on the novel of the same name by Gerald Kersh. Shot on location in London and at Shepperton Studios ...

'' and ''

The Naked City ''The Naked City'' (aka ''Naked City'') is a 1948 American film noir directed by Jules Dassin, starring Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff, Dorothy Hart and Don Taylor. The film, shot almost entirely on location in New York City, depicts the polic ...

''.

Plot

On a dark, rainy morning at Westgate Prison, prisoners crammed into a small cell to watch through the window as Joe Collins returns from his term in solitary confinement. Joe is angry and talks about escape. The beleaguered warden is under pressure to improve discipline. His chief of security, Capt. Munsey, is a sadist who manipulates prisoners to inform on one another and create trouble so he can inflict punishment. The often drunk prison doctor warns that the prison is a powder keg and will explode if they are not careful. He denounces Munsey's approach and complains that the public and government officials fail to understand the need for rehabilitation. Joe's attorney visits and tells Joe his wife Ruth is not willing to have an operation for cancer unless Joe can be there with her. He takes his revenge on fellow inmate Wilson, who at Munsey's instigation had planted a weapon on Joe that earned him a stay in solitary. Joe has organized a fatal attack on Wilson in the prison machine shop but provides himself with an alibi by talking with the doctor in his office while the murder occurs. Joe presses another inmate, Gallagher, to help him escape but Gallagher has a good job at the prison newspaper and Munsey has promised him parole soon. Munsey then instigates a prisoner's suicide, giving higher authorities the opportunity to revoke all prisoner privileges and cancel parole hearings. Gallagher feels betrayed and decides to join Joe's escape plan. Joe and Gallagher plan an assault on the guard tower where they can get access to the lever that lowers a bridge that controls access to the prison. While the escape plan is taking shape, each of the inmates in cell R17 tells their story, and in every case, their love for a woman is what landed them in trouble with the law. Munsey learns the details of the escape plan from an informer, "Freshman" Stack, one of the men in cell R17, and the break goes badly. The normally subdued prison yard turns into a violent and bloody riot, killing Munsey, Gallagher, and the remainder of the inmates in cell R17, including Joe.

Cast

as Joe Collins *

as Capt. Munsey *

as Gallagher *

as Gina Ferrara *

Ann Blyth Ann Marie Blyth (born August 16, 1928) is an American retired actress and singer. For her performance as Veda in the 1945 Michael Curtiz film ''Mildred Pierce'', Blyth was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She is one o ...

as Ruth * Ella Raines as Cora Lister * Anita Colby as Flossie *

Sam Levene Sam Levene (born Scholem Lewin; August 28, 1905 – December 28, 1980) was a Russian Empire-born American Broadway theatre, Broadway, film, radio, and television actor and Television director, director. In a career spanning over five decades, ...

as Louie Miller #7033 *

Jeff Corey Jeff Corey (born Arthur Zwerling; August 10, 1914 – August 16, 2002) was an American stage and screen actor who became a well-respected acting teacher after being blacklisted in the 1950s. Life and career Corey attended New Utrecht High ...

as "Freshman" Stack *

John Hoyt John Hoyt (born John McArthur Hoysradt; October 5, 1905 – September 15, 1991) was an American actor. He began his acting career on Broadway, later appearing in numerous films and television series. He is perhaps best known for his film and TV ...

as Spencer * Jack Overman as Kid Coy *

Roman Bohnen Roman Aloys Bohnen (November 24, 1901 – February 24, 1949) was an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles in the films '' Of Mice and Men'' (1939), '' The Song of Bernadette'' (1943), and '' The Best Years of Our Lives'' (1 ...

as Warden A.J. Barnes * Sir Lancelot as Calypso *

Vince Barnett Vince Barnett (July 4, 1902 – August 10, 1977) was an American film actor. He appeared on stage originally before appearing in more than 230 films between 1930 and 1975. Early years Barnett was born July 4, 1902, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylva ...

as Muggsy *

Jay C. Flippen Jay C. Flippen (March 6, 1899 – February 3, 1971) was an American character actor who often played crusty sergeants, police officers or weary criminals in many films of the 1940s and 1950s. Before his motion-picture career he was a leading v ...

as Hodges - Guard * Richard Gaines as McCollum *

Frank Puglia Francesco Giuseppe "Frank" Puglia (9 March 1892 – 25 October 1975) was an Italian-American film actor. He had small, but memorable roles in films including '' Casablanca'' (a Moroccan rug merchant), '' Now, Voyager'' and ''The Jungle Book''. ...

as Ferrara * James Bell as Crenshaw - Convict in Print Shop *

Howard Duff Howard is an English-language given name originating from Old French Huard (or Houard) from a Germanic source similar to Old High German ''*Hugihard'' "heart-brave", or ''*Hoh-ward'', literally "high defender; chief guardian". It is also prob ...

as Robert "Soldier" Becker (as Howard Duff - Radio's 'Sam Spade') * Art Smith as Dr. Walters * Whit Bissell as Tom Lister

Production notes

The direct inspiration for the unremitting desperate violence was the recent " Battle of Alcatraz" (May 2–4, 1946) in which prisoners fought a hopeless two-day battle rather than surrender in the aftermath of a failed escape attempt. The film has a number of brutal scenes including the crushing of a

stool pigeon An informant (also called an informer or, as a slang term, a “snitch”) is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law-enforcement world, where informan ...

prisoner under a stamping machine and the beating of a prisoner bound to a chair by straps. Film writer

Eddie Muller Eddie Muller (born October 15, 1958) is an American writer based in San Francisco. He is known for writing books about movies, particularly film noir, and is the host of Noir Alley on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Early life and education Mulle ...

wrote that "the climax of ''Brute Force'' displayed the most harrowing violence ever seen in movie theaters."

Reception

Upon release

The staff at '' Variety'' magazine gave the film a positive review, writing, "A closeup on prison life and prison methods, ''Brute Force'' is a showmanly mixture of gangster melodramatics, sociological exposition, and sex...The s.a. elements are plausible and realistic, well within the bounds, but always pointing up the ''femme fatale.'' Thus Yvonne De Carlo, Ann Blyth, Ella Raines and Anita Colby are the women on the 'outside' whose machinations, wiles or charms accounted for their men being on the 'inside'...Bristling, biting dialog by Richard Brooks paints broad cameos as each character takes shape under existing prison life. Bickford is the wise and patient prison paper editor whose trusty (Levene), has greater freedom in getting 'stories' for the sheet. Cronyn is diligently hateful as the arrogant, brutal captain, with his system of stoolpigeons and bludgeoning methods." Film critic

Bosley Crowther Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though his ...

wrote, "Not having intimate knowledge of prisons or prisoners, we wouldn't know whether the average American convict is so cruelly victimized as are the principal prison inmates in ''Brute Force,'' which came to Loew's Criterion yesterday. But to judge by this 'big house' melodrama, the poor chaps who languish in our jails are miserably and viciously mistreated and their jailers are either weaklings or brutes...''Brute Force'' is faithful to its title—even to taking law and order into its own hands. The moral is: don't go to prison; you meet such vile authorities there. And, as the doctor observes sadly, 'Nobody ever escapes.'"

In 2004

More recently, critic Dennis Schwartz wrote, "Jules Dassin (''

Rififi ''Rififi'' (french: Du rififi chez les hommes) is a 1955 French crime film adaptation of Auguste Le Breton's novel of the same name. Directed by American blacklisted filmmaker Jules Dassin, the film stars Jean Servais as the aging gangster Tony ...

'' and '' Naked City'') directs this hard-hitting but outdated crime drama concerned about prison conditions... The point hammered home is that the prison system reflects the values of society, as Dassin castigates society for creating and then turning a blind eye toward the brutality and insensitivity of a prison system that offers no chance for rehabilitation." Schwartz, Dennis
. ''Ozus' World Movie Reviews,'' film review, October 23, 2004. Last accessed: March 30, 2008.

References

External links

* * * * *
''Brute Force: Screws and Proles''
an essay by Michael Atkinson at the

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home video, home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scho ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brute Force (1947 Film) 1947 films 1947 crime drama films American crime drama films American black-and-white films American prison drama films 1940s English-language films Film noir Films scored by Miklós Rózsa Films directed by Jules Dassin 1940s prison films 1940s American films