Viva Brighton Issue #57 November 2017

ON FILM
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Brighton Rock revisited
Tim Brown, Cinecity co-director
Contrary to what many
people think, most of
Brighton Rock was shot
in the studio, but there
is a sequence in which the
journalist Fred Hale runs
from the station to the Palace
Pier whilst being chased
by Pinkie’s mob. Fred’s
run is probably among the
most famous scenes shot on
location in British cinema.
It was the one thing more
than anything else in the film
that really connected it with
Brighton as a place, and with
that time. It’s the thing that
makes it properly Brighton.
It was a relatively early example of filming on
location and involved the cameras being hidden
in cardboard boxes, in the back of vans and behind
double glass in shop windows, just to minimise
people being too aware. It meant that Brightonians
were caught on film as passers-by. We’re
working with shops and businesses around Gardner
Street and on the route of the run to exhibit a
series of stills from ‘Fred’s Run’ in their windows.
The images reveal hidden details it is not possible
to see in a regular viewing of the film.
At the start of the film there’s quite a famous
sequence that gives the backstory. A man lies
on the beach, a copy of the Evening Argus across
his face. Its headline reads ‘Brighton Gangster’s
Body Found: Gravel Pit Discovery’. It’s a wellknown
cinematic device to use newspaper headlines
to convey background information and, in
this case, to explain that Fred Hale was implicated
in an exposé that lead to the death of Pinkie’s
boss. We’re working with a
film graphics company, Data
Reprographics, to recreate
that newspaper and others
from the film. Hitchcock
also often used newspaper
headlines to comment on
and advance the narrative of
his films and we’ll be recreating
some of the newspapers
from his 1927 film,
The Lodger, too (the film
will also be screening with
a live soundtrack). They’ll
make up an exhibition at the
University of Brighton Gallery
called Fake News: British
Cinema Papers.
It’s 70 years since the production of Brighton
Rock and there’s a range of events in this
year’s Cinecity programme to mark the anniversary.
We’ll be screening the film on 35mm
celluloid film at the Duke of York’s, which is
one of the few cinemas in the region that can
still show film on film. That will be preceded by
a 30-minute commission by Sarah Angliss and
Aleks Kolkowski, with Bela Emerson and Stephen
Hiscock, called You Want Me To Say I Love You, inspired
by the record-your-own-voice record that
lies at the heart of the narrative. They’ve worked
with A-level English students, who are the same
age as Pinkie and Rose in the novel, recording
extracts directly onto vinyl.
As told to Lizzie Lower
Cinecity: The Brighton Film Festival presents a full
programme of screenings and related events at various
locations around the city (and beyond) from the
10th to the 26th of November. cine-city.co.uk
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