* thread likely to contain spoilers *
I've never read the book in which I'm led to believe that the ending is different. I've been told that Greene was unhappy with the way they changed the ending in the film to make it different to the book. Would someone be kind enough to explain how the ending in the book differs to that of the film?
Thanks.
In the book Rose listens to the record which Pinky has recorded for her (and hear the message in which he describes how he despises her) whereas in the film the record skips on a scratch and repeats over and over again "I love you". The studio thought this a happier ending (i.e. Rose being deluded), though in its own way it's equally bleak. The book is even better than the movie, and is definitely worth reading.
share[deleted]
The end of the book does not feature Rose actually hearing Pinkie's record - I don't know why the guy 'Rick' above said it did, presumably because he hasn't read it - rather, as 'Sara' says, it ends as Rose is on her way to hear the record, "towards the worst horror of all." I agree that the ending of the film was an unsatisfactory cop-out. In fact, despite the excellent performances of both Dickie Attenborough and Carol Marsh, I really feel the film is incomparably inferior to the book. None of the psychological complexities are there, nor the religious undertones, and there is little time or space to do justice to the true malice of Pinkie's character and to develop his relationships with those around him. The book is remarkably paced for what Greene himself (too self-effacingly) called an 'entertainment' - the problem with the film is that it is, like the book's dingy seaside town setting, a 'kiss me quick', cheap entertainment version of what is actually a magnificent achievement of literature. But I suppose that's how they did things in the British film industry in the 1940s...
shareI must insist, Mr Safari, that you please don't insinuate such things in future... I've read Brighton Rock dozens of times: for school, and then for pleasure. In effect, what I said was true... the book ends with her ABOUT to listen to the record and have her illusions shattered... I think the film is a masterpiece, though like book adaptations (almost without exception) it IS inferior. Greene looked to create a character of "pure evil", he said, but in making the character Catholic (like myself), he certainly made it easier for me to identity with Pinky.
shareIn my humble opinion both the film and the book are the greatest in their respective medium in the last century. I don't see the point in arguing if the book is better than the film, as they are two different forms of entertainment. However the film does miss out a lot of things that were either deleted because of complexity or because of the moral outrage that would have appeared had you shown the written manifestation of Pinky on screen during the 1950s. I would love to see this film remade with the slightly more vicious characteristics thrown in. I do believe the skipping record is one of the most bleak and nasty endings ever in cinema, it is just so evil.
sharethe books usually are. I think that ending left a lot of viewers cold. I personally felt it only reiterated what we already knew about the character of Rose. That she is a naive pathetic young woman with deep religious beliefs that tend to cloud her judgement of mankind. You almost feel Rose's pain, and don't want her to know how evil Pinkie really was because she just seems too weak to handle the truth of such evil, since she herself believes in the good of all. Its a very bittersweet ending.
shareI loved the ending of the film and just did not see it coming. On one hand I was expecting her to hear the cruel taunts of Pinkie, but didn't know how she would react. Then for her to hear the "I love you" remark and nothing else and remain in ignorant bliss was just perfect - I really felt for her and what a nice performance Carol Marsh gave.
Cheers,
i think i should point out that the end of the movie leaves open the (likely) possibility that Rose would eventually hear the complete recording that was stuck at the conclusion of the flik.
phonographs in this era up through the '50s and into the '60s often got stuck and repeated the recorded groove over and over and over like at the end of Brighton Rock. of course there was no problem on a new player with a new factory pressed record and a new playback needle, but self made recordings (like a boardwalk recording booth) were of dubious quality, records got dirty and needles wore down and were seldom replaced. as a result, one of the tricks used to stop a record from getting stuck was to tape a small coin (sometimes two) on the playback arm above the needle to add enough weight to overcome the flaw causing the repetition. (almost) everyone did this.
assuming that Rose would want to hear Pinky's entire recording, it seems likely (to me) she would use this kind of "fix". when she did, her devastation would be compounded by the delay between hearing the "I love you" stuck recording and the entire message recorded by Pinky!
I love both endings. I was surprised with the way the film ended as I didn't know it would differ from the book, but as someone above says - it's equally bleak. Rose wouldn't know that Pinkie didn't love her, therefore she'd regret not commiting suicide alot more.
I don't know which I prefer, I just watched the film and thought it was genius!
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I agree, and happen to quite like the way the film changed the ending. It is satisfying precisely in the way that it refuses to satisfy such blatantly built up tension and expectations. Furthermore, it did not feel like a bland, happy-face, facile cop-out to me at all. It is complex in its implications, perhaps even more so than would have been the case with the full insults being heard by Rose.
As for the poster who said that none of the character complexities, such as the religious elements, were mentioned in the film, I disagree: both Rose and Pinkie are presented as having religious depth, albeit conveyed via laconic and subtle gestures, as the cinema demands. The two characters are opposites-- one having a faith in God and the goodness of the world so powerful that she is willing to accept damnation for it, and the other, arguably, a faith even more powerful, a faith that yearns for a benevolent God and a just world with such profound fear that his only defense mechanism is to damn himself and everything around him.
Just watched this classic for the first time in years - and was stunned anew by the brilliant evil of the twist ending. I was delighted to read here exactly how it differed from the implication in the book (that Rose would have heard Pinky's original devastating words and NOT a partial - thus cruelly misleading - phrase, as a result of the damaged record).
I wondered who was the bright spark who changed what Rose heard? Was it an unlikely brainwave from the censors (who also insisted, apparently, on the newsreel-style "crawl" at the start of the movie explaining how super the "real" Brighton was!), was it co-scriptwriter Terence Rattigan? Or was it the great Greene himself - possibly under protest, since he's on record disliking the change?
As far as I can tell, Greene slyly fudged the truth about this. Insisting in later life that the main film rewrites of this novel were all his own - and that Rattigan offered only a wholly upbeat final scene which was specifically rejected.
However, I'm satisfied the sublime "broken record" ending was indeed Rattigan's idea. Somewhere I read that Attenborough unambiguously confirmed this & that Greene actually quietly came to approve of TR's inspiration - but preferred to accept the credit for the cinema-version twist himself.
(I rather like the fact there's a bit of a murky mystery about the cracked record idea. And like another commenter here, I agree this change from the novel is pure genius!)
I imagine the ending was changed because the book's ending is highly uncinematic - the book ends before the story ends, like a sentence trailing off with three dots. Fine for literature, but films don't work like that.
Given that there had to be a change, I think the trick ending works quite well, amd it isn't really as much a softening of the book as some fans say. Someone called the film's ending "glutinously religious", but apart from the stuck record it's almost straight from the book. Greene was a questioning, doubtful Catholic, and that played a big part in how he views the world in his books.
You could take all the religion out of Brighton Rock and still be left with a good thriller, but it's Catholic belief that gives it its ambiguous moral edge.
The studio thought this a happier ending (i.e. Rose being deluded)
If that is what the studio really thought then I can not understand their mindset. Personally I think the film's ending makes the narrative even more tragic as Rose will forever live in naivety. If Rose had listened to Pinkie's real feelings then she may have gotten over him and become wiser.
"I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not".
I suppose it's one to divide opinion, I like it because it was not at all what I was expecting and I like the focus on the crucifix and the suggestion she has been mercifully saved from yet more cruelty (in actual fact the scratch could logically have been cause by his earlier frantic attempts to destroy the disc).
It's a fair point that if she had heard the truth she might have come to terms with who and what he really was, but there again the truth may well have destroyed what little sanity she had left.
Couldn't Rose have just lifted the needle up and moved it forward past the scratch on the record. Isn't that we all would have done especially if a deceased loved one had made a recording to us. She then would have heard alot of the remainder of his hate filled rant.
shareGreene is on record as saying he liked the new ending. Also:
"[Greene] knew the distributors and the censor would not have accepted the original, and besides, 'I also knew that thinking people would realise that one day Rose would play the record and move the needle beyond the crack and thus get the shock with which the book ends'. The film's ending works, then, on two levels, one for thinking people, the other for the rest."
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/book-review--pin kie-out-on-the-dangerous-edge-of-things-john-carey-considers-the-backg round-to-the-enduring-popularity-of-graham-greenes-novel-brighton-rock -1476157.html
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