Jules Dassin

Brute Force

Brute Force

As hard-hitting as its title, Brute Force was one of Jules Dassin’s first forays into the crime genre, a prison melodrama with a scathing critique of the punitive American incarceration system at its heart. 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, and asks the question of who society’s real brutes are.

Film Info

  • United States
  • 1947
  • 98 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.37:1
  • English
  • Spine #383

Special Features

  • On the Blu-ray: New 4K digital restoration by TLEFilms Film Restoration & Preservation Services, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • On the DVD: Restored high-definition digital transfer
  • Audio commentary featuring film-noir specialists Alain Silver and James Ursini
  • Interview with Paul Mason, editor of Captured by the Media: Prison Discourse in Popular Culture
  • Program on Brute Force’s array of acting styles featuring film scholar David Bordwell (Blu-ray only)
  • Stills gallery
  • Trailer
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An 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

    Cover by Lucien S. Y. Yang

Purchase Options

Special Features

  • On the Blu-ray: New 4K digital restoration by TLEFilms Film Restoration & Preservation Services, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • On the DVD: Restored high-definition digital transfer
  • Audio commentary featuring film-noir specialists Alain Silver and James Ursini
  • Interview with Paul Mason, editor of Captured by the Media: Prison Discourse in Popular Culture
  • Program on Brute Force’s array of acting styles featuring film scholar David Bordwell (Blu-ray only)
  • Stills gallery
  • Trailer
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An 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

    Cover by Lucien S. Y. Yang
Brute Force
Cast
Burt Lancaster
Joe Collins
Hume Cronyn
Capt. Munsey
Charles Bickford
Gallagher
Yvonne De Carlo
Gina Ferrara
Ann Blyth
Ruth
Ella Raines
Cora Lister
Anita Colby
Flossie
Howard Duff
Robert “Soldier” Becker
Art Smith
Dr. Walters
Whit Bissell
Tom Lister
Sam Levene
Louie Miller
Jeff Corey
Stack
John Hoyt
Spencer
Jack Overman
Kid Coy
Roman Bohnen
Warden Barnes
Sir Lancelot
Calypso
Credits
Director
Jules Dassin
Producer
Mark Hellinger
Original music by
Miklós Rózsa
Cinematography
William Daniels
Screenplay by
Richard Brooks
Story by
Robert Patterson
Art direction
Bernard Herzbrun
Art direction
John F. DeCuir
Edited by
Edward Curtiss

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