Alex Bailey/Brighton Rock Prod

Seaside Special: On Location of Brighton Rock

16 March 10

Graham Greene was famously sniffy about most film adaptations by others of his prolific writings, his dismissive comments ranging from “the script… was horrifyingly bad” (Travels With My Aunt) to “a complete treachery” (1957’s The Quiet American).

Even the ones in which he’d had a hand himself weren’t necessarily exempt from his griping. “The Boulting Brothers didn’t give me enough control,” Greene noted tersely of his involvement with the 1947 version of Brighton Rock, on which he’s officially credited as co-screenwriter with Terence Rattigan.

In fact, it was very much Greene’s show right down to the invention of an ingenious, wickedly ironic ending to convey in bearably cinematic terms what is described in the book’s chilling last sentence as “the worst horror of all.”

The result was a hard-boiled movie classic – topped off with a remarkable performance by a 24-year-old Richard Attenborough as vicious teenage gangster Pinkie Brown – which was voted number 15 in the BFI’s 100 Favourite British Films of the 20th Century poll in 1999. Greene’s The ThirdMan – produced two years after Brighton Rock – was, incidentally, the winner.

Sixty-two years later, on a windswept, rainy November night under the colonnades on Madeira Drive just a stone’s throw from the garishly-lit pier, writer/director Rowan Joffe is supervising a remake of Brighton Rock .With smoke billowing foggily in the background as muted light moodily picks out a gangland killing on a glistening pavement, the sequence reeks of Film Noir.

To be able to play a character like Ian Curtis once in one’s career is amazing.

Admitting that he feels the hand of Greene heavily on his thirtysomething shoulder, Joffe, who won the Director Fiction/Entertainment BAFTA this year for C4’s The Shooting Of Thomas Hurndall, says: “I’m focused on the film now so that takes up most of my attention. But not a day goes by when I think ‘I shouldn’t be doing this’ because Greene inspired such deep, fierce and possessive loyalty among those who love and admire his work. Even if this is the best adaptation in the world, I suspect it’ll still be crucified by a substantial selection of critics.”

If Greene is the spectre at Joffe’s feast then surely Attenborough – now 86 – must be casting a long, scar-faced shadow for the new Pinkie, Sam Riley, best known to date for his triumphant role as Joy Division’s Ian Curtis in Control?

“Look, I don’t care if someone’s played it before,” says Riley. “If they’re going to make me an offer to play a part like Pinkie, which is the best part going for an actor of my age this year, then I’ll have that. To be able to play a character like Ian Curtis once in one’s career is amazing enough; to be able to do that and Pinkie in the space of four years is just insanely lucky.”Also, Riley laughs: “I don’t remember Dickie calling anyone a c*** in his version.”

Alex Bailey/Brighton Rock Prod It’s not as if there haven’t already been attempts before to bring Brighton Rock back to the big screen: Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick and even the Hughes Brothers have all apparently tried and failed.

When Joffe, son of director Roland Joffé, a multiple BAFTA nominee in his own right, was asked if he’d like to have a stab at a screenplay, he hesitated because it’d been a while since he’d read the book. “When I did, I just couldn’t get it out of my system; so much so, I rang my agent back and said I would write it but not just to then give it away. I said I wanted it to be my first feature as a director – although I secretly thought the chances of that actually happening were probably nil.”

Studio Canal, who own the rights, its distributor Optimum Releasing as well as production company Kudos Pictures, seemingly didn’t want to remake the original film as such nor a faithful period adaptation of the book, which had been written between the wars. All also agreed that, for various reasons, a contemporary version wouldn’t work either.

That kind of indecision was music to Joffe who then felt freed to come up with what he thought was an entirely valid reimagining of Greene’s original work by setting it in 1964. It was the year before the end of capital punishment, when the country still retained a ‘40s/‘50s innocence while still being on the cusp of contemporary as Mods began to dictate music and fashion.

Joffe has also, after much heart-searching, retained a strong Catholic core to the screenplay – “without it, the story’s hollow” – as well as Greene’s own brilliant film ending – “which is shot through with the ambiguity that’s fundamental to the book.”

Joining Riley in the cast are Helen Mirren, John Hurt, Andrea Riseborough, Nonso Anozie, Sean Harris and Phil Davis, while behind the camera Joffe’s expert crew includes cinematographer John Mathieson BSC, production designer James Merifield and costume designer Julian Day, who, acknowledging the influence of French gangster movies, now gets to grips with the fashions of yet another decade after recently taking on the ‘50s for Nowhere Boy and the ‘70s with Control.

Alex Bailey/Brighton Rock Prod

For producer Paul Webster, head of Kudos Pictures, shooting at night means the film is really “coming alive” for him. It “reflects the darkness at the heart of the story and contrasts perfectly with the candy stripes of the seaside.”

Shooting in and around both Eastbourne – doubling for Brighton – and Brighton itself, the £6m production has been “blessed with weather” that has helped better approximate the Whitsun setting for the action, which also craftily uses the Mods and Rockers riots of the time as a backcloth. “There’s almost been too much sun at times,” Webster sighs. “It’s quite a relief to get to the darkness.”

The daily call-sheet boasts a quote usually sourced from the great author. Like, “The Pinkies are the real Peter Pans – doomed to be juvenile for a lifetime.” Joffe’s personal favourite is: “When you are unsure, you’re alive.” Welcome to Greeneland.

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