A Dassin Dossier
Mar 25, 2009J. Hoberman’s got a sharp and snazzy piece in the New York Times on American expat director Jules Dassin—just in time for Film Forum’s fifteen-film . . .
Synopsis
As hard-hitting as its title, Brute Force was the first of Jules Dassin’s forays into the crime genre, a prison melodrama that takes a critical look at American society as well. Burt Lancaster is the timeworn Joe Collins, who, along with his fellow inmates, lives under the heavy thumb of the sadistic, power-tripping guard Captain Munsey (a riveting Hume Cronyn). Only Collins’s dreams of escape keep him going, but how can he possibly bust out of Munsey’s chains? Matter-of-fact and ferocious, Brute Force builds to an explosive climax that shows the lengths men will go to when fighting for their freedom.
Cast
| Joe Collins | Burt Lancaster |
| Capt. Munsey | Hume Cronyn |
| Gallagher | Charles Bickford |
| Gina Ferrara | Yvonne de Carlo |
| Ruth | Ann Blyth |
| Cora Lister | Ella Raines |
| Flossie | Anita Colby |
| Robert ‘Soldier’ Becker | Howard Duff |
Credits
| Director | Jules Dassin |
| Producer | Mark Hellinger |
| Music | Miklós Rózsa |
| Cinematography | William Daniels |
| Screenplay | Richard Brooks |
| Story | Robert Patterson |
| Art direction | Bernard Herzbrun and John F. DeCuir |
| Editing | Edward Curtiss |
Disc Features
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer
- Audio commentary by film noir specialists Alain Silver and James Ursini
- A new interview with Paul Mason, author of Capturing the Media: Prison Discourse in Popular Culture
- Theatrical trailer
- Stills gallery
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: A booklet featuring 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
From the Current
Brute Force: Screws and Proles
by Apr 16, 2007Here we are in the dark territories again, the republic of bitternesses and bile known as noir, squaring our jaws against an amoral universe and roaming the rain-wet, lightless American City as if it were a circle of the inferno where backstabbers, goldbricks, and unfortunates march in closed . . .
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Film Noir Marks
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