The second of three films that Burt Lancaster made for Mark Hellinger, the writer-producer who discovered the former acrobat and turned him into a movie star. The first of these was "The Killers (1946)" and the three-picture contract was completed with "Criss Cross (1949)," a film Hellinger never lived to see, as he died before production began. His widow insisted that Lancaster honor the contract he had with her husband.
This caused quite a stir in 1947, shocking audiences with its levels of violence.
The movie the inmates were watching was The Egg and I (1947) starring Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert. Both that and "Brute Force" were Aug 1947 "Universal" releases so a sort of movie 'trailer' within another movie, which is quite unique.
The calendar girl was painted as a composite of all the female characters in the film: it features one or two facial characteristics from each one of them. Therefore when each man looks at it, it does actually resemble his loved one. The original prop was sold at an auction for 2500 dollars.
The unsettling "calendar girl" everywoman the inmates have pinned up in their cell was painted by John Decker, who, among other things, did the paintings in Fritz Lang's Scarlet Street (1945).