 | This week's feature presentation is a powerful 1947 film noir directed by Jules Dassin. It begins on a rainy night in the Bay Area, in a prison accessible by the mainland only across a drawbridge. |  |
| This convict is called "Calypso", and he's played by Sir Lancelot, who sang calypso in I Walked with a Zombie and Zombies on Broadway and who sings calypso here as he goes about his chores and if nobody in this movie takes a shiv to him, somebody in the audience will. |  | |
 | Our story deals with the six inmates of Cell R17. Here's a couple of 'em now, including Howard Duff in his film debut. Note the woman on the calendar, too: she looms large in the film. And here's the boys in the cell watching Franklin, their ex-roomie, take his last ride. He died while working in "the drain pipe" (more about that later, too). |  |
| Okay, here things get good. The big guy is Joe Collins (Burt Lancaster), who's just been sprung from "the hole" where he's spent 30 days for having a knife. The little guy is Hume Cronyn, the prison's ambitious and sadist Captain of the Guard Munsey. |  | This was Lancaster's second film, after having been "discovered" in producer Mark Hellinger's previous noir, The Killers. Hume had been around films for awhile, but was cast against type here, to great effect. |
 | The mousy little guy on the left is begging Gallagher, the prison's "fixer", for help. Seems Mousie is the guy who planted the knife on Burt at the order of Capt. Munsey; his life isn't worth a ciggie now. Meanwhile, the prison warden (center) is under a lot of pressure to knock off his "reform" movement and crack down hard on the cons. |  |
| The next morning, a fight breaks out in the machine shop, and the guards rush to break it up... |  | |
 | Leaving Mousie alone. He has an "accident" and falls into the license-plate stamp. Lancaster tries to talk Gallagher into helping him plan a prison break, but the answer's no. Gallagher's been promised a parole, and points out some nutty con who always swears there's a break on for "next Tuesday." Tuesday never comes. |  |
Collins says he has to bust out, there's a certain woman who needs his help. Gallagher: "I don't care about anybody else." Collins: "That's cemetery talk." Gallagher: "Why not? We're buried. We're just not dead." |  | |
 | Okay, this guy here wants to know what the big deal is with the calendar girl. He's told that they use her to symbolize women they met on the outside. Like Anita Colby there, who used her lips as a distraction while she picked your pocket and stole your heart. |  |
| Collins meets with Regan down in the infirmary; Regan has come from the drainage ditch being dug around the prison. There is a way out, he tells Joe: use the tunnel to get BEHIND the guards in the main tower. |  | |
 | Most of the prisoners are off watching The Egg and I, and are they ever enjoying it. Should be shown at Matinee in the Balcony some time, eh? Back in R17, though, Whit Bissell is dreaming of Ella Raines, for whom he stole money to buy luxuries. |  |
| Capt. Munsey interrupts the memories to do a little psychological needling, including telling the poor guy that he's been confiscating all his mail and that dear Ella is divorcing him. |  | |
 | Whit refuses to rat on his friends, which is what Munsey wants, but he's also too weak to hold out forever. So he takes a different route outta stir. The next day, the prisoners are warned that if they don't fall in line and obey the rules... |  |
| ...they'll have to answer directly to Mussolini. Sorry, Munsey. The Captain tells them, "You're not fit for civil life, and you won't accept prison life." He offers them the worst life of all: work in the drain pipe! |  | |
 | As part of the crackdown, all paroles have been cancelled. The men decide to take the drain pipe detail and use it as a springboard out of the pen. Word is spread throughout the prison; the guy with the ladle works for the prison paper, so he has access everywhere. He tastes this kitchen slop and says, "Now I know what happened to Rin-Tin-Tin!" |  |
| Here's a nice view of the watchtower and the outside end of the tunnel. |  | |
 | Collins gets word in his lunch that Gallagher wants to meet with him; since his parole's been cancelled, he's in on the break. They draw up escape plans in their prayer books. |  |
| Now it's time for Howard Duff's flashback; it's wartime, and he's got Yvonne DeCarlo to care for in a little village in Italy. Has nothing to do with this movie, but it's nice to see her. |  | |
 | The prison doctor is an alcoholic, but as he tells Munsey, "I get drunk on whiskey, not power." Munsey takes some brow-beating, then knocks the old man down. Collins was a bank-robber on the run when he met beautiful but crippled Ann Blyth. He wants to escape so he can help her get an operation to save her life. |  |
| The reporter is caught trying to give a message to Collins in the drain pipe, and his brought to Capt. Munsey... |  | |
 | ...who beats him 12 ways to Sunday because he won't tell Munsey who's in on the escape plan. The guy won't crack, though. He's taken to the hospital ("He had an accident") and tells the doctor, who warns Collins that somebody has ratted out the plan to Munsey, who is waiting for them. |  |
| Joe sets a trap for his cellmates, and this guy walks into it. He's the stoolie, and he'll pay for it. |  | |
 | On the left, we see Gallagher with a couple of his pals, including Gene Roth (left). No, this pic doesn't do much to advance the story, but we wanted to see Gene. Other familiar serial performers you'll find in this prison are Glenn Strange, Tom Steele, Dale Van Sickel, Ed Cobb, and Kenneth MacDonald! |  |
| In fact, there's Tom Steele now, standing behind Munsey with the machine gun. |  | |
 | The signal goes off, and the men create a distraction by lobbing some molotov cocktails at the tower. |  |
| Mr. Steele is deadly accurate with that thing, though, and many of the convicts are cut down. |  | |
 | Out of the ditch comes the stoolie, chained to the ore wagon. He's cut to ribbons by the guards' bullets, but Collins and the other cons use the wagon as a shield and overpower the guards. The second wave of bullets gets most of them, though. |  |
| Munsey grabs the gun and flails away at the unarmed, fleeing convicts. Looks smug, don't he? |  | |
 | Collins has been shot and his fellow cellmates are dead, but he hoists himself up the tower and battles Munsey to the death. |  |
| Overpowering his opponent, Collins tosses him down to the remaining convicts below... |  | |
 | ...and they stomp Munsey to pieces. |  |
| Joe collapses, dead. |  | |
 | R17: No survivors. The doc has the last word: "Nobody escapes. Nobody ever really escapes." |  |
| Brute Force is not available on DVD in the U.S. (Region 1), but can be found (along with The Naked City) in a Mark Hellinger film noir boxed set from France. |  | |