Brute Force - 1947 Jules Dassin movie about convicts and guards in a prison so unforgiving and dehumanizing that the prisoners decide they must escape.This Mark Hellinger production has a great cast(Burt Lancaster,Hume Cronyn,Yvonne DeCarlo and a ton of familiar faces for fans of film noir like Charles McGraw) and is brilliantly photographed by William S. Daniels.This movie has several violent scenes that are more horrifying by what they don't show.Hume Cronyn steals the show as the sadistic prison guard that is more in love with power than any other person.This Criterion edition looks spectacular ,has a commentary track,essays,letters from the producer to the head of the censorship trying to keep his film intact.This is a very harsh movie -brutal- but well worth seeing. A-