Brute Force
Directed by Jules Dassin
Written by Richard Brooks; story by Robert Patterson
1947/USA
Mark Hellinger Productions/Universal International Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
[box] Spencer: You know, I was just thinking. An insurance company could go flat broke in this prison.[/box]
Hume Cronyn plays against type as a sadistic guard in this violent prison picture. Burt Lancaster tears up the screen right along with him.
Westgate Prison is badly overcrowded and administered by a dipsomaniac warden who asks little more than to keep his job. The liberal-minded prison doctor is equally ineffectual. So the real boss is Capt. Munsey (Cronyn) who sees the prisoners somewhat like how a boy who likes to torture flies sees his victims. He loves to play them off each other, get under their skin, and dole out brutal punishments.
Joe Collins (Lancaster) has just been released from solitary. He is a tough customer and the men look up to him. Joe and several of the other prisoners have ladies waiting for them (or maybe not) that they long to be with. We learn their stories in flashback.
One day, Joe learns that there may be an escape route through a drainage tunnel that unlucky prisoners are sent to work on. He makes an escape plan and assembles a small team. But Muncey is one step ahead of him…. With Charles Bickford, Sam Levene, Howard Duff, and Sir Lancelot as prisoners and Yvonne De Carlo, Ella Raines and Anne Blythe as prisoners’ wives and sweethearts.
This is worth seeing for Cronyn’s performance. Lancaster plays rage and torment as nobody could. The prison breakout is memorable in its sheer power and violence. The film gets a bit preachy at the very end but not so as to undercut what went before.
Trailer
