Brute Force (1947) User Reviews (103)

Striking '40's Prison Drama.

[jpdoherty · 7/10 · 30 March 2012]

Universal International's BRUTE FORCE is without doubt one of the finest prison pictures ever made. Outstandingly directed by Jules Dassin this brutal brooding and dark drama, has never been, or is ever likely to be, equaled. Produced for the studio in 1947 by Mark Hellinger the stunning black & white cinematography by William Daniels, together with his amazing use of light and shade, perfectly highlighted the bleak grimness of being shut away on the "inside" where injury and death lurks from every crevice of the thick walls. Based on a story by Robert Patterson it was turned into a brilliant screenplay by Richard Brooks and composer Miklos Rozsa once again supplied one of his high octane tension filled scores.

Hardened convict Joe Collins (Burt Lancaster) is a "lifer" in the maximum security prison of Westgate Penitentiary. Together with his old boss Gallagher (Charles Bickford) - who is also doing time as the prison's newspaper editor - he plans an elaborate escape. But tyrannical head guard Captain Munsey (a brilliant Hume Cronyn) suspects a breakout is afoot and will go to any lengths to prevent it. In one intensely harrowing sequence in his office he interrogates inmate Louie Miller (Sam Levene) about the impending escape and savagely beats him with a hosepipe as Wagner's Tannhauser plays full volume on the phonograph. But Louie endures and tells him nothing. However through another informant Munsey learns the date and time of the escape and prepares his guards accordingly to thwart the breakout. With Collins getting even with the "stoolie" the picture ends in a bloody and vicious battle between the guards and convicts with many deaths on each side including Collins and Munsey who have it out in a climactic and spectacular fight atop the gate tower.

The acting is nothing short of superb! In only his second movie (after Hellinger's "The Killers" the previous year) Lancaster is especially good as the recalcitrant and difficult Collins ("You're not fit for civil life and you won't accept prison life" Munsey chides him.) Good too is Charles Bickford, Roman Bohnen as the weak and ineffectual Warden and really excellent is Art Smith as the kindly but perpetually hammered prison doctor ("Yes Capt. Munsey - I'm just a very ordinary man. I get drunk on whiskey but you sir - you get drunk on power".) But there's little doubt the picture belongs to Cronyn. In a powerful portrayal of the highest degree he simply chews up every bit of scenery there is as the sadistic and dictatorial Captain Munsey. Also of note is the score by the great Miklos Rozsa. Almost eclipsing his music for "The Killers" his brooding score here pinpoints the seediness and the ever present potential for danger and death within the prison. His sombre main theme, heard in its broadest rendition under the titles, is a slow dirge-like piece reflecting the despair and hopelessness of those incarcerated in a high security establishment. BRUTE FORCE is one of the composer's best noir scores.

The picture only has one drawback - the various and needless flashbacks depicting the women in some of the prisoner's lives. These scenes are merely padding and quiet unnecessary. They do nothing really for the movie except break the atmospheric continuity that already had been so well achieved and established. But thankfully they don't last very long and they make up what is only a minor quibble and does not prevent BRUTE FORCE remaining one of the finest gems from Hollywood's golden past.

Prison Noir!

[hitchcockthelegend · 9/10 · 22 January 2009]

This is Westgate Penitentiary, the Warden is a weak man, the prison is practically run by the cruel and highly ambitious Captain Munsey. But the prisoners are no walk overs, they deal their own justice to those that don't tow the line, tired and fed up of mistreatment, and fuelled by the Munsey influenced suicide of a popular inmate, the prisoners, led by big Joe Collins, plot a break out, the fear of failure not even an option.

Brute Force is a cracking moody picture directed with innovation by Jules Dassin and starring Burt Lancaster (brilliant as Joe Collins), Hume Cronyn (Munsey), Charles Bickford (Gallagher) and lady support (shown in excellent flashbacks) from Yvonne De Carlo, Ann Blyth, Ella Raines and Anita Colby. We open in the pouring rain at the monolithic gates of Westgate Penitentiary, Dassin's camera looking up at the gate like some foreboding warning, William Daniels black and white photography is stark and making its point, all this as Miklos Rozsa's score thunders in our ears, it's clear that this is going to be a mean and moody prison picture.

So it proves to be, sure all the formula traits that lace most prison films are in here, but Dassin and his team have managed to harness an oppressive feel to put us the viewer within the walls of Westgate as well. This is a bleak place, there are six men to a prison cell, their only chance of staying sane is memories of loved ones and a unified spirit to not be put upon by the vile Munsey, we are privy to everything, we ourselves are part of the furniture. Brute Force thankfully doesn't disappoint with its ending, the tension has been built up perfectly, the mood is set, so when the ending comes it's explosive and a truly fitting finale to what has been a first rate prison drama. 9/10

Brutality, Futility & Despair

[seymourblack-1 · 9/10 · 4 September 2010]

This powerful drama is totally uncompromising and provides a convincing account of what life is like in a prison which is being run in a particularly brutal and autocratic manner. The consequence for the inmates is that they live in an oppressive and overcrowded environment where hard labour, poor quality food and harsh treatment are the norm. Furthermore, they are also subjected to a cruel system which leads to many of them being abused, tortured or even killed as a result of actions taken by the officials in charge.

As well as the extreme brutality that they experience, the prisoners also suffer the deep level of despair which comes from the knowledge that there's absolutely nothing they can do to improve their circumstances, as even the prospects for rehabilitation and parole are taken away from them. The sheer desperation of these men who can't get away from either their pasts or their current tribulations inevitably creates a need for an escape plan to be developed and Joe Collins (Burt Lancaster), the leader of the convicts in cell R17 is a man who has more reasons than most for wanting to get out.

Joe is released from a spell in solitary at the same time as the body of one of his cell-mates (who was a victim of the regime's evil practices) is being taken away from the prison. Joe's wheelchair bound wife is also suffering from a life threatening illness and is not prepared to go ahead with the urgent surgery she needs unless Joe is with her. He wants Gallagher (Charles Bickford), who is the editor of the prison newspaper, to help with the organisation of a breakout but Gallagher refuses because he believes that he has a chance of being given parole in the near future.

The prison Warden's methods are criticised by his superiors and he's swiftly replaced by Captain Munsey (Hume Cronyn) who is the sadistic Chief Guard whose lust for power has finally won him the top job. The practices that Munsey puts into operation to achieve greater discipline include the indefinite suspension of parole hearings and this leads to Gallagher changing his mind and getting on board with the attempt to escape.

Dr Walters (Art Smith) is the ageing prison physician who drinks too much and despairs about the amount of brutality that he sees. When he openly accuses Munsey of torturing the prisoners, he gets struck to the floor by his disdainful colleague in an act which highlights both Munsey's intolerance and his pleasure in inflicting pain.

The escape plan is eventually put into action but because Munsey had already been tipped off by one of the inmates, the element of surprise is lost and what follows turns out to be an incredibly violent full scale riot with the men on both sides suffering a huge number of injuries and fatalities and the whole endeavour proving to be an absolute failure.

The characters in this story are very memorable. Joe is tough, full of controlled anger and completely focused on what he wants to achieve. Munsey is vicious, merciless and manipulative as he fosters and uses a network of informers and even uses psychological methods which, in one case, leads to an inmate's suicide. Gallagher's discretion, integrity and diplomacy gain him the respect of both the guards and the convicts and Dr Walters is a humanitarian whose disenchantment with the system is profound. Lancaster and Cronyn are outstanding in their roles and the performances of the rest of the cast are also consistently good.

The allegorical nature of the story is strong as it shows Munsey as a dictatorial monster who plays Wagner recordings as he tortures a helpless prisoner and some of the Nazi imagery is also quite striking. Bearing in mind the timing of the movie's release and the political leanings of its director, none of this is particularly shocking. What is more surprising is how this kind of depiction of the prison's officials was sanctioned under the strict censorship constraints which were in force at the time.

"Brute Force" isn't a story of good guys and bad guys as not all the guards are bad and clearly not all the convicts are good. Both groups are perpetrators of appalling brutality as the prisoners' punishment of stool pigeons provides a couple of the most sickeningly cruel scenes in the film. What it really illustrates most strongly is how much hopelessness the people in the institution feel, how futile the self perpetuating brutality is and how inevitable it is that (to quote the philosophical Dr Walters) "nobody escapes, nobody ever really escapes".

Brute Force is a knockout!

[bscowler · 30 October 2004]

I've read recent reviews of this film that condemn it for being "outdated" or not "relevant". Um, hello? This movie is is fifty-seven years old! As such, we are treated to typical 1940s Hollywood stereotypes and acting methods, not to mention references to the recently completed war. Yet, even within the pitfalls of the studio system, this film shines as a great example of film noir.

Director Jules Dassin is brilliant with light, and sets the example for the French "new wave" of cinema. Lighting Burt Lancaster from the side, or from underneath, makes him and the other actors look almost surreal.

Most of the dialogue is "clipped" and preposterous, but films from this era often suffer from this same problem. Yet "Brute Force" retains its original power simply by virtue of the dynamite performances, the stirring score, and the gritty techniques of Dassin.

I had to smile during the scene where Hume Cronyn's character turns up the Wagner on his hi-fi so the guards outside his door won't hear the inmate he's about to beat scream. This was mimicked during David Lynch's ground-breaking TV series "Twin Peaks" when a character turned up his radio before he beat his wife. Of course beating people isn't funny, but seeing obvious references in cinema is always a kick.

I highly recommend "Brute Force" to anyone who appreciates the art of film, great directing, and fine performances.

Classic Movie!!

[ronevickers · 10/10 · 4 July 2008]

Without a shadow of a doubt, Brute Force is a classic movie that still stands today, as a powerful piece of film-making. Everything about this movie is top notch - the acting, the direction, the cinematography, the pacing are all essential ingredients in this superb film. Although there's not a weak link in the entire film, special mention must go to Burt Lancaster, Art Smith, John Hoyt, Charles Bickford, Sam Levene, and Hume Cronyn as the evil & sadistic Munsey. The deft touch of Jules Dassin is there for all to see, and the film builds to a tremendous climax. In 1947 this must have been an extremely powerful and hard-hitting film, and it remains so to this day. For anyone who appreciates movie-making at its best, this is hard to beat.

Nothing's OK! Never was ,never will!

[dbdumonteil · 9/10 · 26 February 2006]

One of the best prison movies ever made.Jules Dassin's direction is so strong ,so precise,so mind-boggling it packs a real wallop.Hume Cronyn gives a subdued but extremely scary portrayal of a sadistic brute.Always in a suave voice,always saying "I want to help you",there's only one way for him:the hard one.Burt Lancaster is equally efficient as a tough inmate .But the whole cast cannot be too highly praised.

The cast and credits read :"the women from outside" .There are four flashbacks which really fit into the movie.All of them last barely two or three minutes but they could provide material for four other movies. The first one (Flossie's ) verges on farce ,it is the comic relief of a desperate movie and we need it!Then the "fur coat" segment which is some kind of Cinderella turned film noir.The third one,perhaps the less interesting (everything is relative!), features Yvonne De Carlo as an Italian girl during the war the former soldier was in love with .And finally Burt Lancaster's story, he tries to find money to pay his girlfriend's operation.

These flashbacks are not gratuitous:all that is left to those men is memories .Besides,the last line tells us something like that:"nobody will escape!nobody!" More than ten years before ,Dassin had shown what French director Jacques Becker would do in his famous prison movie "le trou" (1960) : the prison as a metaphor of the human condition.

There are lots of scenes which will leave you on the edge of your seat.My favorite scene: the informer's death while Lancaster is securing his alibi with the doc.But the final is awesome too,something apocalyptic.

The granddaddy of prison movies

[HotToastyRag · 7/10 · 19 May 2019]

Remember how brutal Caged was, and how it exposed the filth and danger in women's prisons? Check out Brute Force, the male counterpart which came out three years earlier. Burt Lancaster is the lead, personifying the title in only his second movie. He's in prison, alongside Charles Bickford, Jeff Corey, Sam Levene, John Hoyt, Jack Overman, Whit Bissell, and Howard Duff. Their prison cell, R17, is shown so often the film might as well have been titled after it, because the cell itself seems to become another character. Each man has a different story about how he became incarcerated, and through flashbacks, we learn the circumstances, and in some cases, the innocence of the men behind bars. It's a very interesting story, and even though the women billed in the opening credits, Ann Blyth, Yvonne De Carlo, and Ella Raines, have a mere five minutes apiece on the screen, it's effective since the movie is about the men and their deep desire for freedom.

Inside, the prison is run by spineless warden Roman Bohnen, who kowtows to the sadistic, manipulative guard Hume Cronyn. Art Smith plays the prison doctor, but since he's chronically drunk, his wisdom isn't taken seriously. As the movie starts, some of the prisoners play along to get on Hume's good side, but when conditions grow worse, they start planning an escape. If you like famous prison movies like The Great Escape and Escape from Alcatraz, you owe it to them to watch the grandfather of prison-break movies, Brute Force. This is a heavy movie, and at times very upsetting, but it's incredibly exciting and remarkably raw for its time. Strong parallels from The Shawshank Redemption have been drawn to Brute Force, and with good reason. If you liked that masterpiece, try out Burt Lancaster's version.

Kiddy Warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However, due to violence, I wouldn't let my kids watch it.

Nobody Can Ever Escape From the Prison

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 2 September 2007]

In the Westgate Penitentiary, the Warden A. J. Barden (Roman Bohnen) is a weak man, and the institution is actually ruled by the ambitious and sadistic Captain Munsey (Hume Cronyon), who uses violence, fear and treachery to control the prisoners. After the suicide of Tom Lister (Whit Bissell), one of the inmates of cell R17, provoked by Captain Munsey, the prisoners loses their privileges and rest of the group of cell R-17 leaded by Joe Collins (Burt Lancaster) is sent to hard and insalubrious work in the drain pipe. Joe uses a successful strategy of war trying to escape, attacking the tower of the penitentiary from the outside with his men, and from inside with the team leaded by the leader Gallagher (Charles Bickford). However, the plan fails, ending in a bloodshed.

Sixty years after the original release date, "Brute Force" is still a great movie of prison. The story is very well constructed, with flashbacks showing the connection of three inmates with his women. The violence is not explicitly disclosed like in the present days, but the cruelty of Captain Munsey can be understood even by the most naive viewer. The direction of Jules Dassin is outstanding with many memorable scenes. Yvonne De Carlo has a minor participation, but a strong role. The moralist message in the end, when Dr. Walters (Alt Smith) tells that nobody can escape from penitentiaries, does not spoil this great movie. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Brutalidade" ("Brutality")

I Gotta Get Outta Here!

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 25 March 2012]

This story of the half-dozen inmates in Cell R17 of a prison that looks something like Sing Sing is pretty earthy stuff. What a cast. Burt Lancaster is the leader of the attempt to break out. The other cell mates include Jeff Corey, Howard Duff, and Whit Bissell, and John Hoyt -- who was the Martian with three arms in a "Twilight Zone" segment, as well as Decius Brutus in MGM's "Julius Caesar". Charles Bickford is the prison's newspaper editor and Sam Levene is the prison reporter.

On the staff side of the cast list, Roman Bohnen is the weak-willed prison warden, Jay C. Flippen and Roy Teal are corrections officers, and Hume Cronyn is superb as the Captain of the Guards.

I kept thinking how easily this could have been a film about Stalags or concentration camps in World War II Germany. Escape is hopeless. (The code in 1947 would never have permitted a successful escape from prison.) And Cronyn is a kind of Nazi figure. He's smooth and ingratiating when necessary but his real character is revealed during a hair-raising scene in which he tries to get Sam Levene to spill the beans about the escape plans. Cronyn interrogates Levene and taunts him, while Wagner is playing on the phonograph. When Levene isn't forthcoming, Cronyn pulls down the shades, dismisses the witnesses, and begins beat the handcuffed Levene with a rubber hose.

The inmates are all essentially good guys. Flashbacks fill in their back stories. They were either dumb and impulsive or committed a crime to help their marriages or to get money for a girl friend's operation. Either the writer didn't know much about inmate culture or that culture has changed a great deal in the years intervening since its release.

At one point, the weakling warden has an interesting, if brief, exchange with the placid Cronyn. Cronyn remarks, "You set the rules, but I have to enforce them." He's right about his awkward position. He belongs to a class that the sociologist Robert Park called "marginal people," along with top sergeants, head nurses, and factory foremen -- not management and not quite labor. Of course, not every person occupying a marginal status needs to caress his rubber hose with such relish.

There are a couple of murders, a suicide, and a riot. There's plenty of action. At the same time, prison movies are by their nature depressing. The clothing and surroundings are so bleak and grating that, no matter what happens, one's spirits sink.

Check the attempted breakout!

[alydar21 · 10/10 · 1 April 2001]

Ok, ok, I will give away a tad bit of the ending here, but not much. This movie builds decently towards the eventual climactic ending. But wow, what an ending!

Rewind and check the camera shot of Burt giving the go-ahead to begin the escape, and see Jeff Corey (the fink) tied to the front of the tram (and thus first to take the machine gun bullets).

Also don't miss the smoke that comes out the back of Jeff Corey's shirt as he is riddled with those bullets. And it takes a quick eye to catch the guard's shotgun blast actually pierce part of the iron cell bar as he kills Duff from above. How about the bleeding bullet hole in Burt's back as he fights with his new warden? And the strength he shows when tossing him off the tower. The small stuff helps the realism of this oldie!

Burt, you were so cool! I wish you had accepted the Ben Hur and Patton role you were offered!

The Hume I Never Knew

[view_and_review · 7/10 · 8 June 2022]

I never knew you were young Hume Cronyn.

I gotta say, I hated your character. I wanted to stone him.

The first time I'd ever seen Hume Cronyn on screen was "Cocoon" in 1985. He was a 74 year old man by that time and I was a mere babe. I remember him again in "*batteries not included" (1987), and as far as I knew he'd just began acting.

It turns out, naturally, that Hume had been acting for decades. In "Brute Force" he plays a tyrannical prison guard at Westgate Penitentiary named Captain Munsey. He was the right hand man to Warden A. J. Barnes (Roman Bohnen) who had a totally different approach to running a prison. The warden believed in rehabilitation while Munsey believed in debilitation.

One well respected con was fed up with prison life and the daily abuses, and had plans to break out. Joe Collins (Burt Lancaster) had a sick girlfriend on the outside and he would do whatever it took to see her. The only problem was that Munsey had informants everywhere. Joe couldn't sneeze without an informant reporting back to Munsey.

Joe was one of six occupants of cell R17. That alone was reason enough to want to escape. How can you possibly share one cell with five other guys?! Even if you liked each other it would still be hell.

Like "Shawshank Redemption," "Stir Crazy," or "Escape Plan," you want to see the guys break out. "Brute Force" brings a human element to the prisoners while showing just how demonic the guards can be. Joe had an ardent desire to escape, but he couldn't do it alone. It would be all about how many he could get to join him and who.

BRUTE FORCE (Jules Dassin, 1947) ***1/2

[Bunuel1976 · 8/10 · 11 October 2007]

Though I'd only previously watched this movie once almost 25 years ago on a long-defunct Sicilian TV channel called Antenna 10, some scenes have stuck with me to this day and being able to reacquaint myself with the film was a long-cherished prospect which, thanks to Criterion, I now have.

The film is the epitome of the great, hard-hitting prison dramas of the 1930s, but the style in which it was filmed also makes it fall in the "Film Noir" category. This was only Burt Lancaster's second movie but he is already a tough, powerful screen presence and his character is one of the most respected within the prison community. The casting (in characterizations which would be much imitated in subsequent prison films) is perfection: pint-sized Hume Cronyn is very effectively cast against type as the quintessential brutal prison captain of the guards, Charles Bickford is the bigwig inmate who gets things done, Sam Levene is his reporter sidekick. Lancaster's gang includes Howard Duff (making his film debut), Jeff Corey (as a surprising 'rat'), suave ladies' man John Hoyt and Whit Bissell as the most vulnerable and least likely inmate who falls victim to Cronyn's "brute force". There's also Jay C. Flippen as an easy-going prison guard, Sir Lancelot as a happy-go-lucky jack-of-all-trades whose songs often sarcastically comment on the action, Vince Barnett as an old-timer who brings food (and messages) to the most dangerous inmates currently serving in the drainpipes, and an uncredited Charles McGraw as an arms dealer. Actually, one of the best roles in the film – the alcoholic, philosophizing prison doctor who is the only one genuinely interested in the fate of his "patients" – is splendidly portrayed by an actor who was unknown to me, Art Smith, and his confrontations with Cronyn offer some of the film's quiet highlights.

While the film itself offers relatively little new in terms of plot – a few of the prisoners are planning a breakout, the sadistic and power-hungry captain is more evil than the inmates themselves, an informer is punished during a staged scuffle, a traitor is present within Lancaster's gang, the climactic escape is a botched massacre, etc – and some of the plot points rather contrived – Sam Levene being sent to the drainpipes, which results in his being tortured by Cronyn – but Dassin's assured handling still makes all of these situations work superbly well. Ironically, after a period directing mostly light fare, this was the start of a peerless run of five noir classics – culminating in his celebrated caper film, RIFIFI (1955), made while exiled in France. Curiously enough, another Hollywood exile would later on basically make the British equivalent of BRUTE FORCE – i.e. Joseph Losey's exceptional THE CRIMINAL (1960) – while the failed prison break (in similar circumstances) also brings to mind Jacques Becker's masterful swan song, LE TROU (1960).

Like THE KILLERS (1946) before it, this was a Mark Hellinger production (it features no less than four actors from that film) and so would be Dassin's follow-up – THE NAKED CITY (1948). Miklos Rozsa's music is very good and subtly underscores the action. Unfortunately, the four flashback sequences added to the film to show that the hardened criminals here are good-natured people at heart, are mostly redundant and basically only serve to provide some female interest to the story; still, they are brief enough not be detrimental to the film's overall uncompromising bleakness. Incidentally, while screenwriter Richard Brooks was involved in this capacity with several noirs – the others being THE KILLERS itself, CROSSFIRE (1947), KEY LARGO (1948) and MYSTERY STREET (1950; which I recently acquired via Warners' fourth "Film Noir Collection" but have yet to watch) – he never revisited the genre once he graduated to the director's chair (though some sources do list his Mexican Revolution-set CRISIS [1950] and the crusading newspaper story DEADLINE – U.S.A. [1952] under this flexible banner).

a deeply strange movie

[paulet · 6/10 · 17 April 2007]

(POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD)

"Brute Force" is a prison drama, directed by Jules Dassin, who was soon thereafter blacklisted in Hollywood, went abroad, made "Rififi," married Melina Mercouri, made "Never on Sunday" etc. etc. "Brute Force" dates from 1947, a moment when the Stalinist line on the arts was taking a particularly sharp turn toward the crudest formulas--in that year there was a sharp debate in the CPUSA's cultural magazine, Masses and Mainstream, between the screenwriters Albert Maltz and John Howard Lawson (both of whom later served time in Federal prison as members of the Hollywood Ten) over whether art must always be viewed as a weapon in class struggle. (Maltz suggested maybe not, Lawson insisted yes; the dispute was eventually closed by a declaration from V.J. Jerome that Lawson was right, and Maltz was obliged to engage in "self-criticism" for his Browderite errors.)

So here's Burt Lancaster as prisoner "Joe Collins" (and if the assonance of that name is an accident then I am the Grand Duchess Anastasia.) In a back story we learn that he's serving time for organizing bank robberies (students of Stalin's biography, or legend, please note); now he's masterminding a mass escape. The prison warden (Hume Cronyn), made up to look uncannily like Goebbels, struts around his office in jodhpurs and a black Sam Browne belt; when he gets ready to torture a prisoner for information, though, he strips to the waist--no, I'm not making this up--and puts on a recording of Wagner.

Then we have Charles Bickford, editor of the prison newspaper and clearly cast as the voice of misguided reformism; he opposes the prison break, arguing that publicizing the warden's brutality will eventually win better conditions, but is cruelly betrayed, and comes to see the wisdom of Collinsism. Jeff Corey plays one of Lancaster's subordinates but shows his true colors in a key scene: when Lancaster asks the others what position they want to take up in the actual breakout, Corey answers "I'll go last, to cover our back," which sounds plausible until you realize that the others all give the only right answer, which is "Wherever you want me, Joe." Of course Lancaster immediately grasps that Corey is the traitor, presumably because he displays the capacity for independent thought, and so indeed it proves.

Wait, there's more. There is only one Black prisoner, whose job in the joint is to sweep the floors; known as Calypso (I *swear* I'm not making it up) he sings all his dialog in rhymed couplets. And there's the prison doctor, the spineless petit-bourgeois intellectual, who sympathizes with the prisoners but is bullied into inaction by the warden; he drinks and utters despairing commentary.

Pervading this tale is a misogyny so deep and unquestioned that the filmmakers would probably have been astonished to have it pointed out to them. Yet all the prisoners whose stories we learn are there essentially because of the perfidy, greed, lust, or other vices of women in their lives--all except for Joe, who in a scene calculated to induce whiplash smoothly exits a long black getaway car to a house with a white picket fence, where dwells his sweetheart--a crippled girl, in a wheelchair, her nether parts covered by a thick plaid blanket. He swoops her up in his strong arms and carries her about, doll-like, while she squeals with delight--she is, in other words, completely desexualized and infantile, the only kind of woman (the script seems to be saying) that a man can trust.

The square-up is the ancient device whereby dubious themes or images are cleansed in the last few minutes by some clumsy explanation: it was all a dream, or the lurid images had a sober educational purpose, or some such. But what's the square-up in a Stalinist parable? It's a noir dead end! The prison break goes off the rails, the warden gets his fiery come-uppance but the prisoners don't get out, the state cops retake control with great bloodshed, and the prison doctor gets the last word: "They didn't escape. No one ever escapes." In short Hollywood endorses this bleak Sartrean view by way of trumping the rest of the movie's pitch for the wisdom of Comrade Collins.

overly sentimental

[funkyfry · 5/10 · 25 August 2008]

I didn't find this to be a bad film at all, but based on my previous viewings of Jules Dassin's movies I found the style of this one to be surprisingly sentimental and melodramatic. I think the extent of our identification with the character played by Burt Lanchaster was too great, he's far too much of a "hero" for the film to be really interesting.

Nonetheless there are a lot of interesting elements here. Hume Cronyn's performance is definitely a brave one and a very effective one. There's a kind of pettiness that hangs about him that makes his sadistic guard captain very chilling and at the same time convincing. For example, he fancies himself an expert at torture but doesn't manage to get good information from the one suspect we see questioning, nor does his treatment of the Lancaster character result in the kind of intimidation he images it will. And the way he's dressed down by Art Smith's character (by the way, Smith deserved much higher billing relative to his importance in the film) makes him seem very vulnerable.

The thing I most disliked in the movie though was the flashback sequences which made the whole affair seem corny. All of them deal with women who the men in prison have left on the outside, and all of these guys are basically angelic in the flashbacks. There's one with a guy stealing supplies for his Italian girlfriend. And then there's Lancaster's which is saved for the end, the most ridiculous of all because he's got a woman in a wheelchair who he's trying to save from some disease. It was like the most horrid kind of 1800s melodrama stuck into a supposedly hard edged prison movie.

Jules Dassin did a good job of making the movie and all the actors played their parts very well, but the thing was undone from the beginning by that script which called for undue sentiment. I didn't think it made it a truly bad film, but it's a very mixed bag to me and I'm surprised it's been hailed by so many as a "hard boiled" film.

Powerful, dark drama. Great performance by Cronyn.

[KimB-3 · 8/10 · 26 February 1999]

BRUTE FORCE This intense, powerful drama stars Burt Lancaster as Collins, a prisoner who's got to find a way out, and Hume Cronyn as the sadistic Captain Munsey, who delights in torturing the inmates. Cronyn is masterful -- cast wonderfully out of character, his slick, soft delivery takes on a skin-crawling menace. Lancaster is appropriately hard and driven, but the fact that he's breaking out to be by his dying girlfriend's side seems facile. The weakest elements of this film are the flashbacks to how his cellmates got locked up. (It seems obvious these scenes are contrived to introduce women into an otherwise all-male cast.) It turns out none of them are really bad guys except Lancaster, who appears to be some kind of gangster. We aren't given much insight into his character; we know he's smart and a leader, but he's clearly got a tendency toward violence. Ultimately, however, it's not about how they got there, but who they are when they get there. It's about what pushes a man past his breaking point and what happens after that. Weaknesses aside, this is a worthwhile, thought-provoking film with excellent performances all around.

Hume Cronym's Best Remembered Role Before Old Age

[theowinthrop · 10/10 · 12 July 2008]

Tonight Turner Classic Films were showing five films in honor of actor writer Hume Cronym (whose birthday is July 18). Cronym has only been dead now for five years, but he was an impressive character actor in comedy and in drama. I was lucky twenty years ago to see the Broadway production of THE PETITION a two person play Cronym played with his wife and partner Jessica Tandy, and I can vouch he was a crisp and fine a performer on stage as he was in his films.

Captain Muncey is one of the most detestable villains in motion pictures, turning his prison into a private torture chamber, with the apparent acquiescence of his guards (note Ray Teal, his personal guard and assistant). He has his way in the prison due to the weakness of the burned out warden Roman Bohman and the bullying of a political hack from the Governor's office (Richard Gaines) who is impressed by Muncey's claims of the need for discipline. But as the wise but alcoholic doctor (Art Smith) points out, while discipline has a place the Warden has never given an order to Muncey telling him to crucify the prisoners.

It's a rather pitiful prison system we see here, and sad to say it remains a problem. The warden keeps bemoaning his failure to come to grips with rehabilitation and punishment, but he has no real suggestions in him, and he is really more upset about what he will do when he is forced out for the rest of his life. The doctor tries to give a degree of humanity to the prisoners lives (interestingly enough, like the alcoholic doctor played by Dudley Digges in MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY), but he is aware that he has no place to work outside the prison he is in either. Muncey, in fact, taunts him as a surgical butcher, suggesting something he did went terribly wrong. Muncey and his guards seem to fall into dominating and assaulting the prisoners at the drop of a hat. When Whit Bissell is walked into accidentally by Cronym in the lunchroom, Teal starts clubbing him until even Cronym points out it was his own fault not Bissell's. Only at one late point in the film, when Cronym is beating up Sam Levene in his locked office, do we see some of the guards react - but none intervene.

The film (well directed by noir specialist Jules Dassin) follows the last week of Cronym's system before it collapses. There have been increasing numbers of prisoners dying because Cronym has purposely put them into unsanitary and deadly work, especially in the main drains of the prison. One prisoner, Burt Lancaster, has refused to crack so far (he has been put in solitary due to a "shiv" being planted on him, with the connivance of Cronym and Teal). He returns to his cell and the prisoner who was the collaborator on this is killed later on in a stunningly good scene in the prison workshop. Lancaster is determined to escape and learns from a dying prisoner that there is a route through the drain. It has to be used in a timed escape that requires a riot in the prison yard and the use of an armed truck. To coordinate Lancaster need the help of the prison trustee (Charles Bickford), but the latter is up for parole.

Lancaster plans the escape with his cell mates (Howard Duff - in his first film, John Hoyt, Whit Bissell, Jack Overman, and Jeff Corey). In the course of their discussions they each tell stories about their lives, showing that the economic forces of the world frequently force them into crime (Bissell embezzles to help him and his wife; Duff takes the blame for a murder his wife - Yvonne De Carlo - committed to help him when he was being arrested for giving food to the Italians in the war; Hoyt, a colorful confidence man, is robbed with his own gun of the proceeds of a swindle and a visit to the gambling tables by an attractive woman who also steals his car; Lancaster has been keeping his crippled, cancer ridden wife (Ann Blythe) from knowing he is a criminal and prisoner). One gets a feeling that these men did not have to become criminals but were forced into it.

This is the weakness of the film, forgetting how many criminals in prison deserve to be in prison for their actions. As was pointed out in another review on this thread, there are sexual criminals who we never see, and the ones sentenced to death (the film is set in 1947) are never even mentioned. Nor are problems among male or female prisoners in their own prisons dealing with sexual predators among their fellow prisoners (and the guards sometimes). However, one can safely say that no prisoner deserves a set of guards controlled by an ego-maniacal sadist like Cronym's Muncey.

The film was shot shortly after World War II, so it is notable that Muncey likes to play Wagnerian music (so long established as music for Nazis) in his office. In fact, when he beats Sam Levene in his office he has the Wagner music playing loudly to drown Levene's screams (oddly enough the music is not from the "RING" Cycle, but from TANNHAUSER, and it is the "Venusburg" music which was supposed to be sensual!). Still the film shows the cruel, power-mad Captain as an unforgettable villain. He is as aware at the end of Lancaster's plans as he can be - but he is also aware of the warning Art Smith gives him - that power mad people end up being destroyed by their power. In his last few moments (as one sees in the film) Captain Muncey does find out how true this comment is.

" Stone Walls do not a Prison Make, Nor Iron Bars a Cage "

[thinker1691 · 25 August 2011]

In every society, there are certain men who for lack of a Good Attorney, or perhaps, a bad decision on their part, they find themselves at the receiving end of court inflicted judgment. One thing societies forget or may be they don't want to know, is that the men they have imprisoned, will eventually get out. The harshness of their punishment at the hands of the Warden or the Prison Guards is what drives inmates to remember how to treat their next victim when they do get out. In this Robert Patterson story, " Brute Force " our hero is one Joe Collins (Burt Lancaster) who comes to the attention of a most sadistic Captain of the Guards named Munsey (Hume Cronyn) (superior acting) who prides himself in knowing how to rule. His egotistic style pits him against Collins and every other prisoner at the prison. Directed by Jules Dassin, this early Black and White movie is a great example of find casting of superior talent. Men who will make their mark in other superior movies. Men such as Jeff Corey, Jay C. Flippen, Howard Duff and Whit Bissell. Throughout this story, audiences hate to root for the hero, as he is a convict. Nevertheless, when it comes to Burt Lancaster, we cannot help but feel that he may yet succeed. The end result of this memorable film is the making of a Classic and in looking back, few can argue otherwise. Superb Movie. ****

flashbacks unnecessary

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 11 July 2015]

It's the overcrowded tough Westgate Penitentiary. Capt. Munsey (Hume Cronyn) is the hard-nosed guard who actually runs the prison. Joe Collins (Burt Lancaster) refuses to bend to his will. He's let out of solitary after getting set up by Munsey. Joe's wife Ruth is unwilling to get an operation for cancer without Joe being there. He has a plan to escape.

The prison movie has been done all the time. This is an early brutal vision of incarceration. The flashbacks of various prisoners are unnecessary and distracting. In fact, most of the flashbacks can be eliminated. Prison is a tough place where there is little hope. Lancaster and Cronyn serve as good foils and it has an action packed battle in the end.

Stunner

[evanston_dad · 9/10 · 7 June 2018]

Stunning nail biter of a film, and surely one of the best prison break movies ever made.

Burt Lancaster stars as a convict who organizes an escape from a maximum security prison. Hume Cronyn is the evil warden who gets wind of the plan and tries to stop it. The film is tough, muscular, and brutal, and it fires on all cylinders for the length of its running time. I could muster up some minor quibbles if pressed, like the fact that Cronyn's character is taken a little too far, or that some unnecessary flashbacks of the events that led the various men to their prison sentences slow the momentum down a bit. But these quibbles are very minor, because the flashbacks don't slow the film down that much -- I'm sure they were included to give the men a little bit of extra rooting interest, which I didn't need myself. I was already rooting for them because....well, just because I was. But they do flesh out the characters a bit and provide the actors with a bit more to do than look hot and tense. And as for Cronyn -- yes, he takes sadistic to pretty spectacular extremes, but it's then that much more satisfying to see him taken down at the end.

This film is a winner.

Grade: A

Great concept, but clumsily executed

[gbill-74877 · 6/10 · 25 March 2020]

Burt Lancaster is great in this, filling the screen with his powerful presence in the role of a convict, and Hume Cronyn is solid too, as the sadistic guard who takes pleasure in torturing inmates both physically and mentally. The film's basic position, that prisons that focus too much on punishment vs. treating inmates with dignity and respect so that they can be rehabilitated, is a good one, and voiced by a doctor over the course of an argument with the kommandant, er, chief guard with lines like these:

"You put up prisons, thick walls, and then your job is over. Finished. But is it over?" "All I know, is that when people are sick, you don't cure them by making them sicker. By your methods we send a man back to society a worse criminal than he was than when they sent him to us." "All you want is destroy instead of build. What we need here is a little more patience, and much more understanding."

Unfortunately the film is filled with issues, starting with just how heavy-handed this message is delivered, and how that's compounded with political, antifascist overtones. The inmates aren't nearly menacing enough (that blowtorch scene where they deal with a snitch notwithstanding), and there's a single African-American called Calypso who sings all his lines in silly rhymes (ugh). The main characters are all given flashback stories in the attempt to humanize them, but they don't really work, generally involving stories where women are involved or are to blame for their misfortunes. The situation for Lancaster's character is a little different; he's in love with a young woman (Ann Blyth) in a wheelchair, stricken with cancer, who doesn't know he's in jail, which is about as cloying as you can get. I suppose these flashbacks are also in there in the attempt to liven up what is a very simple plot and to add a female presence, but they just break up the narrative flow and elongate the film unnecessarily.

Meanwhile, Cronyn's character listens to Wagner, is borderline effeminate, and seems like he's only tough because of his position, taking advantage of it to beat an inmate with a rubber hose. The Nazi coding couldn't be plainer. The doctor warns him that he has his position out of "Not cleverness. Not imagination. Just force. Brute force. Congratulations! Force does make leaders. But you forget one thing - it also destroys them." Not a bad concept, but so clumsily executed. And of course, this little world where morality is inverted was flying into the face of the Production Code, which limited the degrees of freedom director Jules Dassin had in ending it. As a result we also get some requisite dialogue inserted at the end, no doubt to get the film passed, that has all the artistry of a sledgehammer. This is one that could have been so, so much better.

A Film Most Disturbing

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 25 February 2006]

Burt Lancaster in his career made two classic prison story films, Brute Force and Birdman of Alcatraz. Both have their share of fans. Birdman though is much longer and it is solely about Lancaster and his long incarceration. In Brute Force Lancaster heads a good ensemble cast and it is as much about the incarcerators as well as the incarcerated.

One of the things that can't be overlooked about prison films and in this case Brute Force does is that all kinds of anti-social folk go into prison. Just why are they there? Notice there seem to be no sex crime perpetrators in the population, not a realistic picture by any means. Or any narcotics offenders among them either and that was changing right around the time Brute Force was made.

Still director Jules Dassin gets some great performances out of his cast. From the jailer's point of view, the politics of the penal system never got as good a portrayal until Robert Redford's Brubaker came along over 30 years later. I like the performances of weak and burned out warden Roman Bohnen, the alcoholic doctor Art Smith and of course Hume Cronyn who got his career role out of this film.

Once seen you will not forget Hume Cronyn as Captain Munsey. He is a type who unfortunately is attracted to corrections work, a brutal sadist who probably tortures animals in his spare time. Now that is not an indictment of all prison guards not by any means. Still people like that do make their way into that line of work.

Which raises an interesting question. Being a corrections officer is one of the toughest jobs going. You are in fact going outnumbered among a group of very antisocial people and going among them unarmed. For your own survival you have to establish a reputation for toughness and fast. Bearing the necessity for that in mind, is there a point where that job will turn you into a Captain Munsey?

Brute Force coming out as it did post World War II with the holocaust discovery fresh in everyone's mind is disturbing and terrifying. How easy is it to slide in brutality when you have that kind of authority over people? I think that's the question director Jules Dassin is asking of his audience.

The coordinated prison break at the climax of the film still almost sixty years later still has a powerful jolt to it. With the odds very much stacked against them the men still do it, even after they know they've been informed on. You won't forget it or Brute Force.

A gripping prison film where the cast overcomes the flaws

[LCShackley · 7/10 · 9 April 2008]

BRUTE FORCE has everything a prison movie needs: a warden under pressure from politicians, a sadistic guard who's the power behind the throne, and a wonderful selection of prisoners led by a young Burt Lancaster.

Burt's roommates (how did they all cram into that little cell?) include newbie Whit Bissell (who has a very emotional scene), first-timer Howard Duff (making the transition from radio), an intense John Hoyt, and lovable mug Jack Overman (whose all too short career included a fine small role in the noir FORCE OF EVIL). The convicts mean business; those who rat on others at guard Hume Cronyn's instigation find themselves getting intimate with dangerous machinery. Cronyn wants more crackdowns; the warden fears a total crackup. And of course, someone's planning an escape. The final scenes of this film were quite brutal for the time and still pack a punch.

A strange script device is the use of a pin-up calendar in the cell as a catalyst for four convicts to relate the stories of their incarceration. These flashbacks help to provide background on some of the main characters (and provide for the appearance of some female faces), but become formulaic and slow down the main escape plot. Scriptwriter Richard Brooks also wrote the screenplay for Lancaster's ELMER GANTRY and became a celebrated director as well. All in all, an exciting film with a few digressions.

"Where else would you find so many helpless flies to stick pins into?"

[ackstasis · 8/10 · 5 April 2010]

'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.

Slow burner with a fantastic climax

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 18 April 2021]

An early prison break genre, setting up many of the plot ingredients and cliches that would become familiar decades later. It's a well-cast little production, with a youthful Burt Lancaster on top form as the simmering con engaging in a battle of wills with sadistic guard Hume Cronyn, also excellent in an against-type role. It's a slow burner for sure, gradually building character before letting rip with one of the most dramatic climaxes of the decade; an excellent way to end the thing.

Too Talky And Too Bleak

[ccthemovieman-1 · 4/10 · 28 February 2007]

This is one bleak, prison movie that goes under the heading of "film noir." I love many, many film noirs but I didn't find this appealing enough to remain a "keeper" in my collection. It's too much talk, for one thing, and sadistic prison guards and a depressing setting don't do much for me, either.

I have nothing but praise, however, for the photography and for the all the facial close-ups. The cast also is outstanding and deep with the likes of Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Yvonne DiCarlo, Charles Bickford, Ella Raines, Howard Duff, Jeff Corey and Walt Bisssell. Wow - that's a lot of "name" actors to us film noir fans.

In between the jail scenes, we get flashbacks to various male-female relationships. In all, I was disappointed in this because I expected so much more.