Directed by John Boulting • 1948 • United Kingdom
Starring Richard Attenborough, Hermione Baddeley, William Hartnell
One of darkest and most sordid of all British noirs, this startlingly bleak, violent adaptation of the novel by Graham Greene delves into the seedy underbelly of the seaside resort city of Brighton, where psychotic, baby-faced gangster Pinkie Brown (a frighteningly menacing Richard Attenborough) leads a band of razor-wielding hoodlums terrorizing the town. When the murder of a rival spirals out of control, Pinkie resorts to increasingly desperate measures to elude detection, while a brassy showgirl turned amateur detective (Hermione Baddeley) closes in on him.
Up Next in Noirvember
-
The Woman in Question
Directed by Anthony Asquith • 1950 • United Kingdom
Starring Jean Kent, Dirk Bogarde, John McCallumFortune teller Agnes Huston (Jean Kent), a.k.a. Madame Astra, has been murdered—but that’s about all anyone can agree on as five different perspectives on the dead woman’s personality come to ligh...
-
The Killer That Stalked New York
Directed by Earl McEvoy • 1950 • United States
Starring Evelyn Keyes, Charles Korvin, Dorothy MaloneBased on a true story, this race-against-the-clock thriller follows the frantic efforts to stop a potentially deadly epidemic before it turns catastrophic. Jewel smuggler Sheila Bennet (Evelyn Ke...
-
On Dangerous Ground
Directed by Nicholas Ray • 1951 • United States
Starring Robert Ryan, Ida Lupino, Ward BondWhen hardened big-city police detective Jim Wilson (Robert Ryan) roughs up one too many suspects, he’s sent to the countryside to cool his heels and help search for the murderer of a small-town schoolg...
