BRIGHTON ROCK (Optimum).

Don’t bother with the new and updated version of Graham Greene’s novel. See instead the original 1947 film, which is so much better and so much seedier. There are brilliant performances by the young Richard Attenborough as Pinkie Brown, the 17-year-old, baby-faced, murderous gangster, and by Hermione Baddeley as the beery, blowsy, brassy Ida Arnold, part avenging angel, part amateur detective. Greene, surprisingly, didn’t like her performance, finding it too theatrical. Carol Marsh is perfect as the innocent Rose. “A Catholic,” said Greene, “is more capable of evil than anyone; because he believes in God, he is more in touch with the devil than other people.”