CS Film Club II

Brute Force (1947)

This nearly lost prison movie from genre master Jules Dassin is a mean, stylish little movie with strong atmosphere. The film is distinguished by two key set-pieces. Most obviously, there's the final prison riot and ensuing shootout which as as viscerally exhilarating as it is crushingly violent. Great as that was, I think I prefered an early scene where the prisoners deal with a squealer in their rank, banging their tools together to silence his screams while blowtorches force the rat into an "accidental" death. It's striking, economic filmmaking which feels swiftly brutal. The movie also benefits tremendously from Hume Cronyn as the villainous chief of security. Cronyn is an actor I best knew as one of the murder obsessed nerds in Shadow of a Doubt and he brings a similar pencil-pushing quality here, playing a bureaucrat who does not seem outwardly imposing but maintains a cruel system of abuse without question. I'm not sure if Dassin was directly inspired by SS officers, but there's a similarity banality of evil to this character.

The movie is held back to some extent by the melodramatic contrivances of its script, which feel at odds with how blunt and mean the content of the story is. Beyond the flashbacks feeling a bit overly written, I'm also not sure I like that we ever leave the prison. Dassin does such a great job building the claustrophobia and atmosphere of this spirit crushing horror that it feels like a mistake to set numerous scenes outside of it. Still, this is definitely a quality piece of work with real cinematic panache.

B+