Brute Force [Criterion Collection]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Burt Lancaster had one of his first starring roles in this hard-hitting prison drama. Capt. Munsey (Hume Cronyn) is a cruel, corrupt prison guard who has his own less-than-ethical ways of dealing with inmates, enough so that Joe Collins (Lancaster) -- the toughest inmate in the cell block -- has decided to break out. Collins tries to persuade Gallagher (Charles Bickford), the unofficial leader of the inmates and editor of the prison newspaper, to join him, but Gallagher thinks Collins' plan won't work. However, Collins does have the support of his cellmates, most of whom, like himself, wandered into a life of crime thanks to love and good intentions. Tom Lister (Whit Bissell) was an accountant who altered the books so he could buy his wife a mink coat. Soldier (Howard Duff) fell in love with an Italian girl during World War II and took the rap for her when she murdered her father. Collins pulled a bank job to raise money to pay for an operation that could possibly get his girl out of a wheelchair. And Spencer (John Hoyt) made the mistake of getting involved with a female con artist. After Munsey drives Tom to suicide and prevents Gallagher from obtaining parole, Gallagher joins up with Collins and his men in the escape attempt. Director Jules Dassin would next direct the influential noir drama The Naked City; six years later, he would move to Europe after political blacklisting prevented him from continuing to work in the United States. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 1
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 (Pre-1954 Standard)
• Screen: Black and White
• Audio: Dolby Digital Mono
• Features:
  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer
  • Audio commentary by film noir specialists Alain Silver and James Ursini
  • A new interview with Paul Mason, editor of Captured by the Media: Prison Discourse in Popular Culture
  • Theatrical trailer
  • Stills gallery
  • Plus: A new essay by film critic Michael Atkinson, a 1947 profile of producer Mark Hellinger, and rare correspondence between Hellinger and production code administrator Joseph Breen over the film's content

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Burt Lancaster - Joe Collins
       Hume Cronyn - Capt. Munsey
       Charles Bickford - Gallagher
       Yvonne De Carlo - Gina
       Ann Blyth - Ruth
       Ella Raines - Cora
       Roman Bohnen - Warden Barnes
       Howland Chamberlain - Gaines
       Edmund Cobb - Bradley
       Anita Colby - Flossie
       Jeff Corey - Freshman
       Jay C. Flippen - Hodges
       Richard Gaines - McCollum
       John Harmon - Roberts
       John Hoyt - Spencer
       Sir Lancelot - Calypso
       Sam Levene - Louie
       Charles McGraw - Andy
       James O'Reare - Wilson
       Jack Overman - Kid Coy
       Kenneth Patterson - Bronski
       Frank Puglia - Ferrara
       Wally Rose - Peary
       Art Smith - Dr. Walters
       Tom Steele - Machine Gunner #1
       Ray Teal - Jackson
       Crane Whitley - Armed Guard in Drain Pipe
       Al Ferguson - Guard

• Director:

  Jules Dassin

• Producer:

  Mark Hellinger

• Screenwriter:

  Richard Brooks

• Cinematographer:

  William H. Daniels

• Composer (Music Score):

  Miklos Rozsa

• Editor:

  Edward A. Curtiss

• Art Director:

  Bernard Herzbrun, John De Cuir

• Associate Producer:

  Jules Buck

• Set Designer:

  Russell A. Gausman, Charles Wyrick

• Costume Designer:

  Rosemary Odell

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  Robert Pritchard

• Makeup:

  Bud Westmore

• Special Effects:

  David S. Horsley

• First Assistant Director:

  Fred Frank

• Consultant/advisor:

  Jacques Gordon

• Short Story Author:

  Robert Patterson

REVIEW:

• Although dismissed by auteur critic Andrew Sarris for its social commentary, Jules Dassin's masterful noir, which more than lives up to its title, is a wildly stylized tour of a prison in which the inmates are running the asylum. Still one of the harshest and grimmest of all noirs, it places a young, magnetic Burt Lancaster in a dungeon-like environment apparently just this side of Transylvania. Contrary to expectation, the prisoners are an amazingly soulful lot, with a dubiously high proportion doing time as a result of what they did for love. And they're models of mental health compared to the staff, which includes a shaky warden, an alcoholic doctor, and Hume Cronyn, as the indelibly fascistic guard, Capt. Munsey. The hounding of a stool pigeon into a steam press by blowtorch-bearing cons is typical of the facility's daily recreation. While some of the speechifying can be tedious, and the filmmakers have clearly loaded the dice in favor of the inmates, the character of Munsey remains a compelling portrait of a grotesquely authoritarian personality. Miklos Rosza's brooding score and William H. Daniels' moody photography are vital elements in the film's impact. ~ Michael Costello, Rovi