Product: Brute Force [DVD] [1947] (1947)
Rating: 5.0
A Hammer
There's a feverish undercurrent to this prison film that occasionally erupts into outright delirium ( the prison break, the interrogation scene). As delivered by blacklisted director Jules Dassin and screenwriter Richard Brooks, the film's anti-fascist message is put in your face, not in your lap. Still it's exciting stuff, except for the draggy domestic scenes that are meant to humanize the cons, but instead disrupt the film's relentless pace and super-charged atmosphere. Burt Lancaster gives a career performance, while Hume Cronyn is surprisingly effective as the sly Nazi-like warden. There are many familiar faces in the supporting cast, especially Art Smith as the humane but feckless doctor and Sir Lancelot as his calypso assistant. I suspect there's a provocative parable lurking somewhere in the subtext, something about the inability of liberals (the old warden and the doc) to contain the brute force it takes to keep people in prison. This is revealed at film's end when the camera dollys back to reveal the doc behind office bars and speaking toward the camera. Then we know the movie is about more than a bunch of desperate convicts trying to break through prison walls. Despite its many flaws, this stark melodrama keeps coming at you with the mesmerizing force of an uplifted hammer and should not be missed.