The genesis for Brute Force began with producer Mark Hellinger, who had produced such films as They Drive By Night (1940), High Sierra (1941), and even the Jack Benny movie The Horn Blows at Midnight (1945). It was after he had read an article by a former convict that he decided he wanted to make a prison movie. It would take nearly a decade for Mr. Hellinger to achieve his goal.
Mark Hellinger turned to Robert Patterson, a columnist for The San Francisco Examiner to develop the movie's story. Robert Patterson took inspiration from a real life incident, the Battle of Alcatraz, a particularly violent escape attempt on the part of armed convicts at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. Unfolding from May 2 to May 4 1946, two Federal Bureau of Prisons officers and three convicts were killed during the escape attempt. Richard Patterson's story was turned into a screenplay by Richard Brooks. Richard Brooks had written the screenplay for the camp classic Cobra Woman (1944), as well as the novel Crossfire upon which the 1947 film noir of the same name was based. Brute Force was directed by Jules Dassin, who had earlier directed The Canteville Ghost (1944). Jule Dassin would go onto direct such classic noirs as The Naked City (1948), Thieves' Highway (1948), and Night and the City (1950).
While Brute Force is very much a film noir, it is also very much a message film. Quite simply, it examines the corruption of the American prison system as it was in the Forties. Westgate Prison is overcrowded and underfunded. While the warden (Roman Bohen) has good intentions, he is seems ill-equipped to deal with the prison. Much of the day-to-day running of Westgate Prison falls to the head guard, Captain Munsey (Hume Cronyn), an utter sadist who relies on stool pigeons to report anyone violating the rules and metes out punishments that are excessive for the breaches of the rules they are meant to punish. Given the conditions at Westgate Prison, it should come as no surprise that the prisoners, led by Joe Collins (Burt Lancaster), plot to break out.
Given it is set in a prison, one might be forgiven if they think Brute Force has all-male cast. That having been said, the women in the lives of the convicts do appear by way of flashbacks. Ann Blyth plays Joe's wife Ruth, who needs an operation for cancer. It is Ruth's illness that largely fuels Joe's desire to escape. Robert (Howard Duff) recalls Gina, a woman in Italy for whom he stole food from the Army. When her father goes to turn Robert into the military police, she kills him. Naturally, Robert takes the blame for the killing. Tom's (Whit Bissell) wife (Ella Raines) is his excuse as to why he is in prison. She wanted a mink coat, so he cooked the books at work. Spencer's (John Hoyt) mind goes back to a con artist, Flossie (Anita Colby), who robs Spencer at gun point and then steals his car. Given Ella Raines and Anita Colby's characters, the portrayal of women in Brute Force is to some degree misogynistic, but then such misogyny is hardly alien to film noir.
What sets Brute Force apart from other film noirs, aside from its setting, is that it is an overly violent film for its era. Wilson (James O'Rear), one of the prison's snitches, is killed in a steel press in the workshop. Munsey beats a prisoner who is strapped to a chair. The violence of the climactic fight between Joe and Captain Munsey was such it ran afoul of the MPAA Production Code Administration. Even by today's standards, the violence in Brute Force can be shocking at times.
To a degree Brute Force seems dated (particularly in its portrayal of women), it remains a harrowing film about prison life in the Forties. It remains a hard-hitting critique of the prison system as it was at the time.
Brute Force is a tough movie; tough to watch and tough to forget.
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