'Brute Force (1947)' was the first in an impressive run of film noir pictures by Jules Dassin, prior to his trouble with the HUAC. It is perhaps the father of the prison drama. Certainly, without it there couldn't have been any 'Escape from Alcatraz (1979)' or 'The Shawshank Redemption (1994).' Burt Lancaster plays Joe Collins, a convict bent on escaping the seemingly-inpenetrable Westgate Penitentiary. Collins quietly recruits fellow inmates, while avoiding the watchful gaze of chief guard Captain Munsey (Hume Cronyn), a sadistic, power-hungry authoritarian who is ultimately more dangerous than the prisoners in his charge. Cronyn's performance is brilliant and unusual: despite an otherwise unintimidating stature, he nonetheless represents a vicious force of reckless authority, frightening and loathsome. While ruthlessly beating a prisoner for information, Munsey drowns out the noise with a recording of the opera "Tannhäuser," perhaps a reference to Hitler's fondness for Wagner. In comparison, the prison's warden A.J. Barnes (Roman Bohnen) is meek and impotent, a tired old man clinging to the familiar.
Though undoubtedly a hard, tough drama, with several intense and confronting moments, Dassin punctures the film with tender flashbacks to the convicts' lives before prison. One inmate recalls with fondness the one time he was swindled by a crafty dame. Another laments the lover he left behind in Italy during the War. Collins remembers the innocent, wheelchair-ridden girl whom he loves, and who is doomed to die herself while he serves his prison sentence. These occasional flashbacks not only humanise the prisoners (especially when compared to the cold, spiteful Capt. Munsey), but also suggest the reason for their crimes, and their enduring lust to break free -- in true noir style, of course, a woman is usually the catalyst. This humanisation of the characters is ultimately heartbreaking, as we come to realise that their efforts are meaningless, their fates doomed. The Production Code would never have allowed a successful prison break, and, for once, the film is better for it.
Though undoubtedly a hard, tough drama, with several intense and confronting moments, Dassin punctures the film with tender flashbacks to the convicts' lives before prison. One inmate recalls with fondness the one time he was swindled by a crafty dame. Another laments the lover he left behind in Italy during the War. Collins remembers the innocent, wheelchair-ridden girl whom he loves, and who is doomed to die herself while he serves his prison sentence. These occasional flashbacks not only humanise the prisoners (especially when compared to the cold, spiteful Capt. Munsey), but also suggest the reason for their crimes, and their enduring lust to break free -- in true noir style, of course, a woman is usually the catalyst. This humanisation of the characters is ultimately heartbreaking, as we come to realise that their efforts are meaningless, their fates doomed. The Production Code would never have allowed a successful prison break, and, for once, the film is better for it.