Darkest Greene

The UCLA Film Archive’s “The Nature of Things: Graham Greene on Film,” which runs weekends through Jan. 23 at Melnitz Hall’s James Bridges Theater, draws attention to the unusual relationship the novelist, film critic and sometime screenwriter had with the movies. Greene’s stories lent themselves to adaptation so exceptionally well that virtually all of his novels were filmed.

Friday’s double bill starts off with “Brighton Rock” (1947). Released in the U.S. as “Young Scarface” and adapted by Greene and playwright Terence Rattigan from Greene’s 1938 novel, the movie is a riveting film noir right up there with the best of its American counterparts. Set in Brighton, the exuberantly raffish English seaside resort, it stars Richard Attenborough as a psychotic teenage gangster who targets a victim, then realizes that he has left a clue at a tearoom, where a naive waitress (Carol Marsh) could also incriminate him. What to do but marry her, so that she could never testify against him?

Not surprisingly, this is not enough to stop his life from unraveling, especially since he has fallen under suspicion from a brassy music hall entertainer (Hermione Baddeley) who simply wants to see justice done. Directed by John Boulting and produced by his twin brother, Roy, “Brighton Rock” is steeped in vivid atmosphere and a corrosive vitality.

Attenborough’s ferocious yet compelling Pinkie Brown brings to mind James Cagney in “White Heat” and Richard Widmark in “Kiss of Death,” but above all his portrayal has a Peter Lorre-like creepiness. “Brighton Rock” is shot through with Greene’s characteristic Catholic guilt and features one of his usual ruined-men-with-a-conscience, in this instance a solicitor long on the skids, played memorably by Harcourt Williams. The film’s ending is a real zinger.

Next up is “This Gun for Hire” (1942), one of the earliest important films noir. It is best remembered as the movie that launched Alan Ladd as a top star and marked his first teaming with sultry Veronica Lake -- but it was also based on a 1936 Greene novel, “A Gun for Sale.”

Ladd is cast as an icy hired killer whose latest assignment entangles him with a chemical magnate (Tully Marshall, an ever-creepy Erich von Stroheim favorite), who is prepared to sell his formula for poison gas to the “enemy.” The bombing of Pearl Harbor occurred during shooting, and some quick rewrites subsequently make it clear that the enemy was Japan.

Ladd’s character in turn crosses paths with Lake’s nightclub singer-magician, who has been recruited by the government as a secret agent. There are some over-the-top moments and others that seem dated, but the fabled Lake-Ladd chemistry is timeless -- as are Lake’s Edith Head gowns. It also stars Robert Preston as Lake’s policeman beau and Laird Cregar as Marshall’s oily henchman. In addition, the film revitalized the career of director Frank Tuttle, who began in the silent era.

In over his head

The UCLA series continues Saturday, with “The Fallen Idol” (1948) first up for the evening.

Wanting to capitalize on the success of “Brighton Rock,” producer Alexander Korda brought together director Carol Reed, fresh off the unforgettable “Odd Man Out” (1947), and Greene to collaborate on “Idol.” It became an international success and one of the most esteemed films from postwar Britain. Greene adapted it from his 1935 novella “The Basement Room.”

Bobby Henrey, a remarkable child actor, plays a boy caught up in a simmering triangle beyond his comprehension. He is the son of an ambassador of an unnamed country who has been left in the care of an elaborate London embassy’s kindly, paternal butler (Ralph Richardson), much adored by the lonely boy, and the butler’s strict, killjoy wife (Sonia Dresdel).

When the child sees the butler and a beautiful embassy secretary (Michele Morgan) together in a nearby cafe, he does not realize that the two are caught in a desperate, clandestine love affair. In his perplexed innocence, the boy subsequently places the butler in great jeopardy in the aftermath of a drastic turn of events. Reed generates almost excruciating suspense from the butler’s increasingly tense predicament. Directed with the utmost subtlety and finesse, “The Fallen Idol” is exceedingly clever but also much more.

Naivete and evil

Would that all famous movies have stood the test of time as well as “The Third Man” (1949), the witty, stylish, vastly entertaining Reed-Greene film noir set in ravaged postwar Vienna and accompanied by musician Anton Karas’ memorable zither theme; it’s even better than one remembered it. The film was Greene’s first original screenplay.

Joseph Cotten is the brash, naive writer of western novels who’s come to Vienna on the promise of a job from an old pal, only to arrive in time for his purported funeral. The intrigue and danger that quickly ensnare the perplexed but dogged Cotten yield an unsentimentally observed conflict between the loyalty that friendship demands and the reality that Cotten’s pal (Orson Welles) was -- or is -- an especially evil and heartless man.

Cotten is charming as the innocent abroad, and there are equally terrific performances from Alida Valli, Trevor Howard -- and, of course, Welles.

*

Screenings

UCLA Film Archive’s Graham Greene retrospective

* “Brighton Rock” and “This Gun for Hire,” 7:30 p.m. Friday

* “The Fallen Idol” and “The Third Man,” 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: James Bridges Theatre, Melnitz Hall, UCLA

Info: (310) 206-FILM or www.cinema.ucla.edu