About Richard Attenborough
Lord Richard Attenborough - or ‘Dickie’ as he was fondly known - was born in Cambridge in 1923. He trained at RADA, and had a brief a stint on the London stage before war broke out where he was seconded to the newly formed RAF Film Unit at Pinewood Studios. His commander at the RAF was Flight Lieutenant John Boulting, who later gave the young Dickie his first major film role in 1945’s Journey Together, before two years later casting him as the stony-hearted gangster Pinky in Brighton Rock.
In this conversation from 2004, Attenborough talks to Quentin Falk about the film adaptation of Graham Greene’s novel, Brighton Rock. He reveals what motivated him to move behind the lens, directing hits like Oh What A Lovely War and Gandhi. And he shares failsafe advice given by David Lean on the set of his very first feature, In Which We Serve.
When Attenborough died in 2014, at the age of 90, he’d amassed an extraordinary range of cinematic experiences, both in Britain and Hollywood. And it’s the benefit of all this filmic wisdom that you’re about to hear…
Brighton Rock (1947)
Pinkie Brown is a small-town hoodlum whose gang runs a protection racket based at Brighton race course. When Pinkie murders a journalist called Fred Hale whom he believes is responsible for the death of a fellow gang-member, the police believe it to be suicide. This doesn't convince Ida Arnold, who was with Fred just before he died, and she sets out to find the truth. She comes across naive waitress Rose, who can prove that Fred was murdered. In an attempt to keep Rose quiet Pinkie marries her. But with his gang beginning to doubt his ability, and his rivals taking over his business, Pinkie starts to become more desperate and violent.
