Odd Man Out August 27, 2006
Posted by John Hodson in : Film & DVD Reviews, British Film, Crime / Noir / Thriller , trackbackA veteran fighter for ‘The Cause’, this was going to be one of Johnny McQueen’s last jobs with a gun. He has a vision of replacing the bullet with the ballot box, but he’ll never see the day. Stumbling through a snow filled landscape, life is ebbing out of him drip by bloody drip onto the cobbled streets of Belfast…
Odd Man Out is one of the finest films I’ve ever seen; literate, achingly beautiful, a haunting score, wonderfully acted and deftly directed. It is probably Carol Reed’s masterpiece, but , in general, today is largely forgotten other than by film fans, and even amongst that community, it’s certainly overshadowed by Reed’s The Third Man (which the briefly seen Orson Welles dominates so completely, that many - not you, gentle reader - credit him with the film’s success).
Reed’s dark tale of greed and love lost in post-war Vienna is indeed a scintillating piece of work by any standards. But it’s the story of the I.R.A. (although his affiliation is never made clear, McQueen’s ‘chief’ must surely be so) man on the run that resonates so much more deeply, with this viewer at least.
Despite the highly charged political backdrop, Reed’s 1947 film largely skirts those issues, as a pre-action title card makes plain. This is a film not about the ‘Troubles’ per se, but about the human heart; well, that’s the claim. The camera swoops in from above Belfast’s dockland taking us - the ones that live outside the province at least - into a city and a conflict of which we know little.
Johnny, just escaped after eight months in jail doing a 17-year stretch for gun-running and still not fully recovered, is first seen in the upstairs room of a small terraced house in Belfast’s town centre. The cell is planning a fund raising raid on a local mill; of course, they’re going armed, but Johnny urges no gun play. In fact, the three men who lift the cash - McQueen, Nolan (a very young Dan O’Herlihy) and Dennis (the excellent Robert Beatty) - do so in an affable fashion, smiling, nodding and winking at those they surprise in the mill office, bundling notes from the safe into bags.
As they make their getaway, Johnny is taken ill and is grappled to the ground by a gun-toting Mill worker. Two shots ring out, Johnny taking a horrific wound to the shoulder, the mill worker dead where he lies. As he races their car from the scene, nervous and excitable driver Pat (Cyril Cusack, fine tuning his brogue for north of the border) allows Johnny to fall from the running board. It’s a mess; the alarm bringing the authorities, the gang on the run without their wounded chief.
Reed paints a picture of a divided Belfast full of traps for those engaged in the struggle; informers after cash, police everywhere. Denis O’Dea’s intractable Inspector is determined that his man will face justice, and if his portrayal is in danger of being perceived as fascist - clad in black, with a swagger stick he uses to lift faces up to his - Reed weighs this against the incompetent gun happy Pat, who is desperate to use his gat. And with fatal consequences, while full of spine-stiffening whiskey, he does so.
James Mason turns in a remarkable performance as the charismatic Johnny; his weight as an actor is to spend most of the film dying, with little in the way of dialogue, but he dominates the proceedings effortlessly. In truth, McQueen’s dead from the moment the bullet was fired - he first escapes to an air raid shelter, where he makes a couple of spectral appearances, to a child, then to a courting couple who don’t even notice at first that this human wraith is in there with them. Later, as he leaves the home of an English woman who attempts to patch him up - then shrivels away when she realises who he is - the wind howls as if it is his spirit and not the corporeal being that is about to walk the freezing cold Belfast air. His travels across the city take him to a monumental mason’s yard, where he slumps, surrounded by headstones, statues of angels, the detritus of the dead.
Reed films him, semi-conscious, delirious, in agony, trying just to get somewhere, anywhere, where he can die in peace. And all the time, the constabulary is closing in, picking up his comrades, cutting him off from safety. If Reed eschews the political angle, he doesn’t shy away from the spiritual. Johnny’s girl, Kathleen (the gorgeous Kathleen Ryan), who is plotting an escape route, seeks help from the wise Father Tom (W.G. Fay) who taught Johnny as a child. Father Tom wants to save Johnny’s immortal soul, and gently lectures the fey Shell (F.J. McCormack), seeking the reward the police are offering, that there are rewards worth having greater than mere money. Shell can’t quite grasp it…
Father Tom’s simple reflections on the basic tenents of Christianity - the basic necessities of humanity - have been falling on deaf ears for years; ‘They can’t hear you Father!’ says a hallucinatory Johnny. But the words spoken by his vision to the child long ago finally break through. From Corinthians, Johnny, standing on legs that will barely support him, yells a memory of a lesson he can just remember: ‘When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I reasoned as a child…’ If there is a religious message - underscored by a Christ-like vision of McQueen, arms outstretched against bare railings - it is surely that 2,000 years in, none of us, of any faith or creed, is listening. Despite the protestations of that title card, maybe William Hartnell’s English publican, who spots Johnny but wants nothing to do with him or his business, is indeed intended to send a political message; but a film such as this? How could it not? Belfast is filled with conspirital shawl-clad republicans; the forces of the Crown, the enemy - to part of the populace at least - for generations.
All this gloom is relieved by a couple of scenes that, I think, Reed handles beautifully. Firstly, as The Third Man demonstrated amply, he’s a superb director of children. Robert Beatty quizzes a Belfast street gang, one of whom simply asks over and over ‘…’ave you got a ciggie? Give us a cigarette…’ and another who answers him with great dollops of cheeky insolence, that only a child who’s aware has the upper hand can dole out to an adult. It’s a lovely vignette. The second, which tends to divide opinion, involves Robert Newton, that old soak, who plays artist Lukey (who is, by coincidence, an old soak). Lukey is searching for the meaning of life and, grotesquely, thinks he can find it in Johnny’s dying eyes. Playing off a cynical failed medical student, Tober (a world weary Elwyn Brook-Jones), their dialogue could almost be described as Pinteresque, though the combination of low comedy and utter tragedy is Fordian, or Shakespearian, depending on your view.
The ending is inevitable, and shattering. Changed from the novel because of the demands of the American censor, it’s possibly more fitting and more satisfying. I’m left in pieces.
Network’s new Special Edition R2 DVD of Odd Man Out is quite, quite gorgeous. The previous R2 disc from Carlton was okay, but suffered from a large amount of telecine wobble, dirt and scratches. This transfer, the sleeve notes tell us, was made by Granada from the best available safety element, after being compared to the BFI held original nitrate fine grain master and found to be in better condition. Digitally restored in high-definition, it’s a peach, showing off Robert Krasker’s absolutely masterful, simply stunning, high contrast cinematography to best possible effect. With much of the action taking place at night on stark snow filled streets - beautifully lit sets and Belfast locations - it’s finely detailed, barely a mark on it. The restored print is, by the way, just about to start a limited theatrical run in the U.K.
The soundtrack too, has had a wash a brush up and William Alwyn’s spare and wonderful score, played on set so that Mason walks in agony in time to the music, is rendered perfectly. There’s a deathly calm, by the way, about the whole production, the blanket of snow that covers Belfast transfigured into a shroud for the dead, the wind eerily becomes part of Alwyn’s overall palette. That’s echoed in Reed’s hit two years later, as Harry Lime’s fingers (actually Reed’s own) probe the night air of Vienna through the sewer grating.
The disc has a handful of very useful extras; the 1972 documentary from Yorkshire Television, Home James, in which Mason returns to his native Huddersfield, is marvellously nostalgic stuff, while there are some fascinating snippets from another 1972 interview, which is basically a collection of unedited rushes. Also worthy of note is the 24-page booklet, Soldier in the Snow, well researched and written by Steve Rogers, and containing lots of useful and interesting information - about the Abbey Players, Mason and Reed’s careers, Krasker’s immense influence, the original novel and much more. At the back of the booklet is a reproduction of the original press book.
There are also 165 images in a rolling gallery, plus the script, in PDF format.
Superb - more of this standard Network please!
Comments»
Nice to see Carol Reed extolled beyond The Third Man. He doesn’t fit the auteurist template and is therefore marginalized, basically dismissed by those who write “learnedly” about film. A shame, really.
He did another with James Mason, The Man Between, in 1954. I suspect whatever memories I have are faulty indeed, as a young kid, watching it on a television. But the final scene, the snowy Berlin streets, through the cab window, Mason mortally wounded … it’s still with me. Rest of film might be sheer detritus. But I’d like to see for myself.
But, it’s never come out on vid/dvd, at least here in the U.S.
Thanks for such an insightful piece on Odd Man Out.
It was available in R1 on a now OOP ‘Image’ disc that was no great shakes yet still goes for horrendous prices. If you aren’t equipped with a multi-region player - and it’s presentations of this quality that are the best argument for doing so - I’ve a hunch it may be picked up by Criterion at some point. It certainly deserves to be in their catalogue.
Thanks for the kind comments and for posting.
Appreciate the heads-up. Have multi-region capability, which allowed me to pick up Anthony Mann’s great Man Of The West (to me, a masterpiece, superior to his Stewart series, far bleaker, grimmer, not to gild the lily, but in the chances it takes, almost Shakespearean in its approach; am disappointed that critics didn’t pick up that Unforgiven is a reworking of Man/West. Come to think of it, History Of Violence, too.) when I was in London last year. Inexplicably, it’s available in Region 2, not here in the U.S. Nor is there anything on the horizon for it here.
[…] As if it hadn’t already been proven by Odd Man Out, The Third Man, Oliver! and The Fallen Idol, Reed is a wonderful director of children, and in the lead as ‘Joe’, Jonathan Ashmore gives a stupendous lead performance - his only film performance - a boy who believes utterly in the magical powers of his pet ‘unicorn’, the eponymous pocket money purchased one-horned animal of the title. […]
I am soooooo glad, to have this “best movie, I´ve ever seen” in such a remarkable quality!!! I will certainly recommend it to everyone! “Odd-man-out” is my absolut favourite movie of all time!!!!
I have just ordered “The man between” thanks to your information!!!
[…] 8:00 PM Odd Man Out (Reed, 1947) - BW-117 mins. - Who knew tonight’s guest programmer Brian Dennehy was such an Anglophile? His first selection, from The Third Man director Carol Reed, stars James Mason as an IRA agent on the run. I’m ashamed to have not yet seen the film, despite looking forward to it very much and having a dusty VHS with a previous TCM showing, but I’ll direct those interested to John Hodson’s write-up. I can vouch for the quality of TCM’s print and add that an R1 release from Criterion should be forthcoming. […]