Brighton on Film

The choice of Brighton Rock as our first theme film is very personal to me, both because the story is so familiar to me, but also because it represents a place so close to my heart. Brighton and Hove is where I grew up and when not in Sydney, the place I call home.

Brighton (for ease, please assume ‘and Hove’) is known for its Piers, its Pavilion (built by the Prince Regent with an Indian exterior and a Chinese interior), its pebble beach and its student and Gay culture.

After a seemingly endless winter, when it gets dark at 4pm, in the summer daylight stretches past 10pm and Brighton comes into its own as one of the best places to live. A bit hippie, a bit London, a bit garish, Brighton is a small city, but one I love.

How does Brighton fare in the world of film?

Since the 18^th Century Brighton has had a reputation as a place that mixes class and vulgarity. In 1796 Jane Austen wrote of Brighton, in a letter to a friend, “Here I am once more in this scene of dissipation and vice, and I begin already to find my morals corrupted.”

This vision of Brighton as a place of immorality and abandon has been exaggerated in fiction creating three common threads when Brighton is represented on celluloid; Brighton is Criminal, Brighton is Perverted and Brighton as Escape.

BRIGHTON IS CRIMINAL

“Brighton today is a large, jolly, friendly seaside town in Sussex… but in the years between the two wars…there was another Brighton of dark alleyways and festering slums. From here, the poison of crime and violence and gang warfare began to spread … this is a story of that other Brighton- now happily no more” -Disclaimer that runs at the beginning of John Boulting’s Brighton Rock.

Brighton Rock (1947) is probably the film people most associate with the coastal city of Brighton. Showing the city’s (or at the time town’s) criminal underbelly, it took the audience amongst the razor gangs who hung out at Brighton’s seaside pubs and teashops.

The real razor gangs who provided the inspiration for Graham Greene’s novel (1938) terrorised Brighton’s racecourses in the 30s and 40s, profiting from racketeering. The fictional central character of Pinkie is a fabrication, but his criminal opponent in the film, Colleoni is based on a real-life gangster of the time called Charles Sabini.

Contradicting the optimistic disclaimer of the 1947 film, Rowan Joffe’s new adaptation updates Brighton Rock, placing it in 1964. Showing that Brighton wasn’t simply a jolly, friendly seaside town, this vision of Greene’s story incorporates the highly stylised youth gangs of the Mods and Rockers (more on them later) during a period where the establishment in Britain was being rocked. But ultimately the era in the film is handled with more style than substance and Brighton, as a location, gets lost.

BRIGHTON IS PERVERTED

Linking in with its criminal element, Brighton is often presented in a way that highlights its seedier side. Well-known for its sexual ambivalence, Brighton is often seen as a place to engage in some risqué hanky-panky. The term ‘dirty weekend’, which refers to an elicit, pleasure-filled weekend, has almost become synonymous with Brighton. However Helen Zahavi’s 1991 book titled Dirty Weekend, subverted the term and created a vision of Brighton as a place full of sexual deviants and perverts. The film version was made two years later by Michael Winner (Death Wish) and was promptly banned for two years due to its violence and explicit dialogue.

In the film, the timid protagonist/ anti-hero Bella (Lia Williams) moves down to Brighton after a failed relationship. Working from home in her new flat, Bella becomes the victim of an obscene caller, who watches her through her windows. Tim (Rufus Sewell) calls in the early hours threatening her with sexual violence, and there is nothing Bella can do to stop him. The police (in the guise of a lecherous D.I) can’t do anything until he actually attacks her and Bella’s friends think she is overreacting. Inspired by an Iranian clairvoyant (Ian Richardson) who tells her she can either be the sheep or the butcher, Bella becomes a vigilante seeking out Brighton’s perverse males.

This revenge fantasy film sees men being brought to justice for their violence against women. The film’s perpetrators/victims are white-collar men whose misogyny is unabashed- that is until Bella comes along.

Showing off the Georgian crescents and squares along the seafront and the Lanes and alleyways the city is famous for, Winner’s film highlights some of Brighton’s most charming architecture, but imbues these areas with menace.

Embracing and distorting Brighton’s ‘kiss me quick’ attitude, Dirty Weekend creates a vision of the city that is sordid, sexually aggressive and dangerous- as if beneath its pretty exterior there are unpleasant creatures (men) waiting to defile you.

BRIGHTON AS ESCAPE

With its proximity to London, Brighton has come to be seen as a place to get away. Relaxed, open-minded and by the sea, the city attracts large numbers of tourists every summer. In films Brighton is often seen as a safe haven for protagonists to hideaway, or to escape from their lives in nearby London.

In Neil Jordan’s film Mona Lisa (1986), the reluctant hero George (Bob Hoskins) and the two prostitutes he has saved travel to Brighton to escape powerful London criminals; a gangster (Michael Caine) and a pimp (Clarke Peters, The Wire’s Lester Freamon). Brighton’s iconic Palace Pier plays its (common) role as a location for a chase, with its bawdy and garish nature exaggerated to full effect.

Another film that sees criminal characters escaping to the seaside to get away from even scarier baddies is the excellent London to Brighton (2006). A low-budget film from Paul Andrew Williams, the story sees a prostitute and a child runaway fleeing to Brighton, pursued by both a low-rent pimp (Johnny Harris) and a seriously scary London gangster (Sam Spruell). The reason for their panicked flight is slowly revealed during the film.

a film still from LONDON TO BRIGHTON

For the two female characters, Brighton represents different things. For the young Joanne (Georgia Groome) the city is a return to innocence; throwing pebbles into the sea and playing arcade games on the Pier. For Kelly (the superb Lorraine Stanley), a prostitute, Brighton is just another place with drugs and punters.

Thanks to a cult British film Brighton has also come to represent an escape from authority and from mundane life. Competing with Brighton Rock as the most iconic Brighton film, Quadrophenia (1979) focuses in on youth culture in the 60s.

Starring many recognisable British faces (including Ray Winstone, Philip Davis and Sting) the film is a story of teen angst and rebellion. Sharing the same name as The Who’s 1973 rock opera album, the film was produced by the band and uses the album for its soundtrack.

Quadrophenia follows Jimmy (Phil Daniels) an 18 year-old Mod who lives in London working a menial job in a mailroom of an advertising agency. Jimmy lives for music, drugs and tailoring. He and his mod friends, who are all suited and booted, go everywhere on their treasured scooters and listen to bands like The Kinks and Small Faces, their motorbike-riding rivals, the Rockers dress in leather and listen to Elvis.

Cast partly because of his similarity to Pete Townshend, Daniels represents the growing number of angry, young men, disillusioned by their parents’ working-class life and mainstream culture of Britain at the time.

a film still from QUADROPHENIA

Set in 1965, the film’s action largely takes place in London, but Brighton plays a pivotal role. The film’s mod and rocker characters all travel down to Brighton for a weekend, distancing themselves from their ordinary lives. The film features scenes of rioting and fights that at that time were occurring frequently on Brighton Beach between the two gangs.

For the film’s protagonist Brighton represents freedom and the possibility of living everyday like it’s the weekend. Ace Face (Sting) is an über cool mod who lives in Brighton and he impresses the young Jimmy with his seeming sophistication. Brighton is a place where Jimmy feels he fits and he feel like he is part of something. Unfortunately all too soon he realises that when the weekend is over even Brighton’s coolest mods have to work a day job.

So what do all these different celluloid representations tell us about Brighton?

At first glance Brighton doesn’t scrub up too well on film, populated by sociopaths, perverts, vigilantes, petty criminals and rampaging anti-establishment gangs it doesn’t sound like a pleasant place does it? But with the immorality and abandon, Brighton also represents somewhere that is accepting and culturally diverse. With a city as fun and beautiful as Brighton you just have to accept the bad with the good.

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