Brute Force

Burt Lancaster made his film debut in Robert Siodmak's The Killers (1946) where he played a quiet and determined man nicknamed 'The Swede'.  In this, his second film, he also plays a tight-lipped, resolute individual who is set on breaking out of jail.  Generally regarded as one of the finest prison dramas ever made, Brute Force follows the men in cell R17 who are dead set on breaking out because of the sadistic treatment from chief guard Munsey.
 
Messages are passed around, snitches are killed 'accidentally' in workplace mishaps and Joe Collins (Lancaster) plots his escape.  The cell has a pin-up in the corner and each man visualises it as his own woman on the outside as a device to show you what they did and how they ended up on the wrong side of the law.
 
Working in the 'drainpipe', a mineshaft where more men come out than go in, Collins and his friends plot their escape based on a story one told of how, in the war, they took a fortified position by splitting up and taking the post by putting themselves in the line of fire as a diversion.  The same plan would work, they reckon, because the guard tower only has one machine gun and they can't shoot at an uprising in the prison yard if there's an attack from outside.  The only thing they need to be careful about is maintaining a high level of secrecy as Munsey would love to foil the plan and make himself warden.
 

 
Burt Lancaster is an incredibly assured screen presence and, just as he did in The Killers, shows ability beyond his experience and really holds the attention.  Hume Cronyn, who made his debut in Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt and was excellent in The Postman Always Rings Twice, is wonderful here, really conveying the level of sadism that Captain Munsey has a reputation for and the way he delivers his lines is done with such venom that you really believe he is as cruel as the character is supposed to be.
 
 

The Disc

 
Sound and Picture
A reasonably clear DD 2.0 Mono soundtrack which is not without the odd pop and crackle but the dialogue is easy enough to hear and the film is beautifully scored by Miklós Rózsa, whose music helps crank up the tension.
 
The picture is reasonably good but there are quite a few scratches and elements of grain visible.  The photography is terrific, with great use of shadow, showing the jail to be a foreboding and dangerous place.
 

 
Final Thoughts
This is one of the great prison dramas and is right up there with The Shawshank Redemption, almost perfect in front and behind the camera.  Sadly the AV quality isn't great and the disc only has the trailer but this film is well worth seeing and fans of Dassin's and Hellinger's work will no doubt welcome its release on DVD.