Brute Force

Brute Force (aka Zelle R 17) is a 1947 American crime film noir directed by Jules Dassin, from a screenplay by Richard Brooks with cinematography by William H. Daniels. It stars Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Charles Bickford and Yvonne De Carlo. This was among several noir films made by Dassin during the postwar period. The others were Thieves' Highway, Night and the City and The Naked City. Plot On a dark, rainy morning at Westgate Prison, prisoners crammed into a small cell to watch through the window as Joe Collins returns from his term in solitary confinement. Joe is angry and talks about escape. The beleaguered warden is under pressure to improve discipline. His chief of security, Capt. Munsey, is a sadist who manipulates prisoners to inform on one another and create trouble so he can inflict punishment. The often drunk prison doctor warns that the prison is a powder keg and will explode if they are not careful. He denounces Munsey's approach and complains that the public and government officials fail to understand the need for rehabilitation. Joe's attorney visits and tells Joe his wife Ruth is not willing to have an operation for cancer unless Joe can be there with her. He takes his revenge on fellow inmate Wilson, who at Munsey's instigation had planted a weapon on Joe that earned him a stay in solitary. Joe has organized a fatal attack on Wilson in the prison machine shop but provides himself with an alibi by talking with the doctor in his office while the murder occurs.