Brighton Rock (1948)

Teenaged gangster Richard Attenborough murders the newspaper reporter he blames for killing one of his fellow gang members. To establish a different time of death, he sends out his gang to carry out the promotional stunt the reporter was supposed to complete. Several blunders results in Attenborough needing to seduce young waitress Carol Marsh and shake a suspicious Hermione Baddeley off his tail. Gangster films are generally dark, but this one is particularly bleak. Attenborough is convincingly ruthless in pursuing his goals, uncaring whether he leads his fellow gangsters to death or psychologically damaging a young girl. Though presumably about a real time in Brighton’s history, the beach setting makes for a strange juxtaposition between frivolous fun and indiscriminate murder.