As I sit to write this particular review with the firecrackers sputtering on this Fourth of July evening and Roman candles exploding over the lake, I am reminded, through this present film, how often one man's patriotism is another man's murder. Odd Man Out (1947) is, on the surface, about the activities of the IRA in Ireland, which the members of that organization viewed as sacred and patriotic obligation, but which the English and the Irish protestants viewed as ruthless brutality. Beneath the sociopolitical surface, this is really more a film about human nature and how we too often let our view of things be determined by proscribed roles and selfish interests, rather than by compassion and human decency. Odd Man Out is a masterful study of the human condition and the first in a magnificent series of six great films during the pinnacle of Carol Reed's career as a director. One can't delve very deeply into a list of the greatest British films ever made without coming to the name of Sir Carol Reed.

Historical Background: Born on December 30th, 1906, Carol Reed had intended to become a farmer, going so far as to travel to America, after graduating from high school, to study the methods of a large, modern chicken farm in the U.S. He soon realized that he greatly preferred strutting on stage to the strutting of the chickens and returned to England to pursue a career in theater. He found work with Sybil Thorndyke's troupe and performed a series of minor roles between 1924 and 1927. In 1927, he took work as an advisor to Edgar Wallace, a mystery writer, helping to adapt his plays for the stage and then working as both an actor and stage manager in the resultant productions. By the early thirties, he had turned his attention to cinema, working as assistant director or assistant producer on various films.

Reed got his first shot at directing in 1935. He gradually worked his way from modest low budget productions to more substantial projects in the late thirties and early war years, of which The Stars Look Down (1939) and Night Train to Munich (1940) were perhaps the best. At the height of World War II, Reed served in the British Army's film unit, making minor documentaries followed by a highly regarded one, A Way Ahead (1944), considered one of the best documentaries made during the war. In 1945, he added an Oscar-winning documentary, entitled True Glory (1945), that traced the war years from D-day to VE-day.

Reed's fame as a director rests most especially on a strings of pearls that he directed between 1947 and 1955. Odd Man Out, the first of the group, was Reed's breakout film. He followed it with The Fallen Idol (1948), The Third Man (1949) (his most famous film), Outcast of the Islands (1951), The Man Between (1953), and A Kid for Two Farthings (1955). It is probably no coincidence that Reed's period of greatest success as a filmmaker corresponded with his decision to act as producer as well as director for his films. In 1956, Reed responded to the lure of Hollywood where he made another worthy film, Trapeze (1956), starring Burt Lancaster, Gina Lollobrigida, and Tony Curtis. Back in England, Reed had another success in 1959 with the comedy Our Man in Havana, but thereafter, his reputation began to decline steadily, except for one strong comeback with Oliver! (1968), for which he won Oscars for both Best Director and Best Picture. Reed was married twice to actresses, Diana Wynyard in 1943 and Penelope Dudley Ward in 1948.

The Story: It's the winter of 1946/7 in Belfast, in Northern Ireland. Johnny McQueen (James Mason), an IRA leader revered by the young Irish Catholic lads, has been holed up in the home of his girlfriend, Kathleen Sullivan (Kathleen Ryan), and her aged Grannie (Kitty Kirwan) for the six months since he escaped from prison, where he had been sentenced for gunrunning. He's devoted to "the organization" though Kathleen would very much like him to choose her over his life of violent political action. His unit of five operatives have planned a robbery, at a mill, to help finance IRA activities.

Dennis (Robert Beatty), Johnny's right hand man, urges Johnny to let him lead the raid instead, since Johnny is out-of-shape after having been cooped up for six months. Johnny refuses, however, and the robbery effort is botched as a result. They grab the loot easily enough, but as they are making their getaway, Johnny almost blacks out on the stairs. That gives one on the men at the mill enough time to confront Johnny, gun in hand, and, in the ensuing struggle, Johnny is wounded and the mill man killed. The cowardly getaway driver, Pat (Cyril Cusack), is slow to go back for Johnny. The other two henchmen pull Johnny onto the running board but a block down the road he falls off and has to make a run for it down an alley. Johnny is now irrevocably separated from the rest of the gang. Severely wounded, Johnny staggers his way into a bomb shelter near an apartment complex. He's in a delirious state and hallucinates being back in his prison cell. Even a little girl, who comes searching for an errant volleyball, initially looks to him like a prison guard. He waxes in and out of consciousness.

Now it's a race between the police and Johnny's comrades to locate him. Dennis goes searching for him in an area that the police have cordoned off. Meanwhile, two of the others involved in the robbery find refuge in what they believe to be a friendly house, get drunk, and talk too much. The woman of the household, Theresa O'Brien (Maureen Delaney) opts to play informer, notifying the police inspector and effectively trading the lives of the two men for a blind eye on the part of the police to her black market activities. Meanwhile, Dennis locates Johnny about the same time that the police are closing in and sacrifices himself as a decoy, leading the police on a wild goose chase so that Johnny can make a getaway.

In his delirious state, Johnny passes out in the street. Two English women, new to the city, thinking that a passing vehicle had struck the man down, help him to their home, planning to administer first aid. When they discover that his problem is a bullet wound and then find a gun in his jacket, they piece two-and-two together and realize that he is the fugitive that the police are chasing. The husband of one of the women returns home and the threesome loudly debate what to do. Johnny finally offers the compromise himself and they simply put him out of the house and deposit his gun in a nearby sewer.

It's now pouring rain and a passerby, believing that Johnny is a drunken reveler, helps him into a nearby horse-driven taxi, unbeknownst to the cabbie (Joseph Tomelty). Johnny thus slips out of the cordoned off sector, but is still in no condition to make good his getaway. When the cabbie discovers his unwanted passenger, he dumps him in an alleyway, not wanting to either turn him in or risk being an accessory. A vagrant named Shell (F.J. McCormick) observes the cabbie unloading McQueen and, realizing who he is, begins to plot how best to make some quick money from the situation. Being a Catholic himself, he'd prefer, all things considered, to sell his information to folks friendly to Johnny rather than the police. Shell proceeds to the Catholic Church, where Father Tom (W.G. Fay) acts as conduit of information for the Catholic community. Kathleen has also gone to Father Tom. Shell is circumspect, wanting to negotiate his most favorable deal before helping Johnny to the Church. Father Tom is no IRA supporter. His main interest is in Johnny's immortal soul, hoping to get him to the Church so that he can hear Johnny's confession and urge him to turn himself in. Kathleen, by contrast, envisions an escape by ship to a place where she and Johnny can forget their troubles and grow old together or, barring that, undertake a double suicide.

Shell finally sets off to find Johnny and bring him to the Church, but he has to first stop by his apartment to drop off the caged bird he's been carrying about. His small room is overrun with caged birds. Shell shares the building with an abusive, crazed, and homosexual painter, Lukey (Robert Newton), who uses Shell as a model for a painting he's working on, of a saint. Lukey is intent on forcing Shell to pose for awhile, under threat of a beating, but Shell finally makes a getaway. By the time Shell returns to the alley where he had last seen Johnny, Johnny has made his way across the street and a half block down it, to a tavern. Inside the tavern, Fencie (William Hartnell), the barman, recognizes Johnny as he enters and hides him in a corner booth, where Johnny hallucinates images in the bubbles of some spilled beer. The barman also wants no trouble from either the police or the IRA. He simply wants to be rid of his unexpected guest. Shell finally traces Johnny, after spotting a discarded bandage, to the bar. He negotiates an arrangement with the bar owner but before he can spirit Johnny away, Lukey shows up, having been fronted a bit of money by his boyfriend, Tober (Elwyn Brook-Jones). A fight ensues but Johnny is ultimately helped back to the apartment house where Shell, Lukey, and Tober all live. Lukey deposits Johnny in the model's chair, intent on capturing his tormented eyes and idealistic soul in what he imagines will be his career masterpiece. Tober, on the other hand, is a failed medical student and his hope is to patch Johnny up well enough to get him to a hospital, so as to show off his unappreciated medical prowess. Never mind that the man will then be arrested, tried, and executed! For his part, Shell still wants to sell the fugitive to the priest. Johnny, increasing disoriented, visualizes Father Tom, recalling one of the religious lessons he had heard as a youth. In a scene fraught with transcendent significance, Johnny rises and quotes a passage about human charity from I Corinthians 8, articulating the film's main thematic thesis.

SPOILER AHEAD. SKIP TO THEMES TO AVOID.

Johnny makes his escape, aided by Shell, as Tober is calling for an ambulance. Johnny collapses once again, behind a flowerbed, and Shell goes on ahead for help. He encounters Katherine out searching for Johnny and soon the two lovers are headed off toward the shipyard, hopeful of escape. The police are closing in, however, and Katherine has to settle for her backup plan. She fires a couple of errant shots at the approaching line of police and the lovers are shot dead, arm in arm.

Themes: Thematically, this film is about philosophy, not politics, however much partisans of the Irish conflict might want it to be otherwise. The film's bleak message is that few of us have so much as an ounce of the kind of genuine Christian charity that Paul spoke about in his Epistle to the Corinthians concerning the preeminence of love. In this context "love" equates to "charity" and it is the later word that appears in the King James version of the Bible. None of the people who chance upon Johnny in his hour of desperate need are remotely concerned with the man's welfare. Nor are they even concerned with the politically antithetical notion of morality which would consist of bringing the man to justice for the murder he committed. Either of those alternatives would at least be an effort at a moral choice, but most of the characters, including Shell, Lukey, Fencie, Tober, "Gin" Jimmy the cabbie, Grannie, and even Father Tom view Johnny as no more than an opportunity to perform their respective functions, be it selling information, painting a great work of art, demonstrating medical skills, saving a soul, or simply remaining clear of the law and the IRA.

Only Dennis and Kathleen care about Johnny as a person rather than Johnny the celebrity fugitive. Some readers might argue that a murderer is not worthy of love or charity, but neither Paul nor Jesus made that distinction. I've always had a great distaste for public manhunts that pervade the news because I despise a situation where a man, any man, regardless of what heinous crime he has committed, is reduced to being the prey in a hunt. Manhunts dehumanize us all. However necessary they may sometimes be, from the point of view of safety and/or criminal justice, they are clearly inconsistent with whatever good exists in human nature. Kathleen, at least, realized that it is better to die in the arms of a loved one than to be reduced to fodder for public spectacles of so-called justice and execution.

Production Values: There is a range in critical opinions about the merits of this film, from those who rate it as Reed's very best work to those who find the film's script lacking, especially in its final third. In my opinion, those who disparage the film are asking it to be something other than what it is. The film is neither primarily an action thriller nor a political position piece. Instead, it is a metaphysical reflection on the issue of human charity.

Those who want it to be mainly a thriller complain that the last third of the plot strays from the flight of the main protagonist, Johnny McQueen, and very nearly allows the peripheral characters to seize control of the plot's progression. They are missing the point that the film's main concern, announced in the opening preface, is the reactions of the various people of Belfast to Johnny's plight. This film is not simply another cops and robbers tale, but deeper in its intents. It is all the better for being so.

Those who are heavily invested in the political conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants of Ireland cannot help but evaluate the film primarily in terms of what they see as its "stance" in relation to that conflict. The film cannot satisfy partisans on either side, but most especially the Irish Catholics, given that director Reed is a Londoner. The film is "mostly pro-British," says one critic. Several of the IRA operatives are presented as coarse, unreliable types while the British policemen are seen acting with restraint. The film is "very weak in setting up the political arguments that caused the civil war in the first place," we are told. A couple of the characters espouse "pacifist beliefs," another critic complains, as though that were inherently nonsensical. Odd Man Out is not a political film at all. It deals with metaphysical issues, but since the story is set in the context of a real political conflict, those invested in that conflict are far less interested in abstract metaphysical issues than the realpolitik. In short, this is a film that cannot really be appreciated in the terms intended by its creator except by those sufficiently removed from the conflict in Ireland to be somewhat disinterested in the political particulars. You can count me in that category. From my vantage point of relative ignorance about the particulars of the conflict in Ireland, it looks mainly like one more example of pointless conflict sustained by the boundless stubbornness of pigheaded men on both sides. I am far more interested in Reed's examination of human nature than in any imagined political implications of the script.

The script was derived from a novel written by F.L. Green, who also sat in on the screenplay discussions. The screenplay, however, was primarily the work of Robert Cedric Sherriff, generally known as R.C., a highly regarded novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. Sherriff was responsible, alone or collaboratively, for many of the finest screenplays between 1933 and 1955, including The Invisible Man (1933), One More River (1934), The Four Feathers (1939), Goodbye Mr. Chips (1939), Forever and a Day (1943), Quartet (1948), and Trio (1950). The script is marvelously paced, maintaining a tension throughout and a thunderous crescendo at the end.

Even if you find yourself in one of the two camps that object to this film's script, you can't help but admire the fantastic atmosphere that Reed generates. Much of the film has a noir look to it. The cinematography, by Robert Krasher, is both gritty and deeply somber. The streets are dark and foreboding and the apartment building where Shell lives has a baroque eeriness about it. The oppressively small bomb shelter activates Johnny's paranoia – as well as our own. Kafkaesque shadows lurk everywhere as Johnny drifts in and out of delirium. At times, Johnny seems evenly perched between reality and a terrible nightmare from which he cannot escape. Surrealistic sequences permeate in the bomb shelter, in the beer bubbles, and, later, in Lukey's room. The film is creatively photographed and tautly edited. The black-and-white photographic style is reminiscent of German expressionism. A moody soundtrack by William Alwyn nicely fortifies the atmosphere of the film.

When asked late in his career to name his best performance, the accomplished James Mason offered this film as his best. That, of course, is an arguable point, given his wide range of roles in such films as Hopalong Cassidy (1935), The Seventh Veil (1945), The Desert Fox (1951), A Star Is Born (1954), 20,000 Leagues under the Sea (1954), Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), North by Northwest (1959), Lolita (1962), Lord Jim (1965), and Heaven Can Wait (1978). There's no doubt, however, that Mason deftly manages the escalating levels of mental exhaustion as his character wades his way through his final hours. There's a childlike innocence in Mason's confusion and desperate search for a way home.

Kathleen Ryan provides both beauty and evident devotion as the girlfriend. The character actors are superlative, especially F.J. McCormick as Shell and Robert Newton as the mad artist. Some reviewers find Newton's performance over-the-top but I thought it both amusing and effective. Newton's other work includes roles in Gaslight (1940), Henry V (1944), Oliver Twist (1948), Treasure Island (1950), The High and the Mighty (1954), and Around the World in 80 Days (1956). Robert Beatty was excellent as Dennis and Denis O'Dea as the British Inspector.

Bottom-Line: This will obviously not be Reed's last appearance during my July marathon of British film reviews. I know that it won't sit well with some of you, but I found Odd Man Out even more compelling than Reed's excellent and more famous film, The Third Man. Odd Man Out is one terrific piece of cinema and should not be missed. The running time is 111 minutes.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older