“People don’t change. It’s like those sticks of rock, bite one all the way down, you’ll still read Brighton. That’s human nature.”

24 years before he was quietly murdering women inside his flat at 10 Rillington Place, Richard Attenborough came up hard on the seedy boardwalks of Brighton Rock. Based on Graham Greene’s 1938 novel of the same name, Brighton Rock is considered by many to be the exemplary British noir. I haven’t seen nearly enough of the Brits’ output during the classic noir period to comment on that, but I can say that Brighton Rock is one powerful portrait of evil and Catholic anguish. Not to mention that Attenborough’s performance as adolescent psycho Pinkie Brown will make your knickers quake.

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