Screen Icons: Richard Attenborough

DVD Extras

• 7 discs.

Film Details

Cast

John Mills, Ian Carmichael, Richard Attenborough, Carol Marsh, Bernard Lee, Dennis Price, Terry-Thomas

Technical Details

Even today, well-loved stars who have the courage to consistently play a range of snivelling cowards, rank outsiders and deviant psychopaths are few and far between. B... more >

Even today, well-loved stars who have the courage to consistently play a range of snivelling cowards, rank outsiders and deviant psychopaths are few and far between. But Richard Attenborough was doing it sixty years ago. From his legendary turn as Pinkie, the teenage gangster of Brighton Rock, Attenborough experimented with roles that were so unsympathetic it’s a wonder he retained his star status at all.

Brighton Rock is the most high profile film here, but just as interesting are the less well-known titles. In The Man Upstairs he is an unassuming lodger at the end of his tether, holed up in his room after an uncharacteristic act of violence. In The Ship That Died of Shame he is an obnoxious spiv, involved with an ex-Navy mob in a smuggling operation, while Dunkirk sees him play a small craft owner summoning up his courage to help the evacuation. Lastly, The Angry Silence is a bristling portrayal of a factory in the grip of industrial action. Attenborough plays the strike-breaker. < less

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