Odd Man Out
Starring: James Mason, Robert Newton, William Hartnell
Director: Carol Reed
The film: Although its claim to have been 'the most exciting motion picture ever made' might have been a bit optimistic, Carol Reed's Odd Man Out was one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the 1940s, in some cases even more so than his better-known The Third Man (1949). It was shown to a full house at this year's Cannes Film Festival as part of Reed's centenary celebrations, and has just been released on DVD in a restored special edition.
James Mason (right) plays Johnny McQueen, the leader of a terrorist cell (ostensibly the IRA) in the city of Belfast who finds himself on the run in Belfast after a fund-raising bank robbery goes wrong. Over the course of a day and an evening he drags himself around wet and gloomy streets looking for help and treatment for a gunshot wound, and in this politically and religiously divided community, gets a mixed reception. And all the while, his girlfriend, with the help of the local priest, is also trying to track him down before the police do.
This very noirish thriller carries loud echoes of early Hitchcock and German Expressionist cinema, the latter being down to the fact that Australian cinematographer Robert Krasker (Brief Encounter, The Quiet American) studied his craft in Germany in the 1930s. Odd angles and vivid lighting setups, trademarks of Both Krasker and Reed, abound throughout. James Mason just about gets away with his Irish accent, and puts in a performance that's at least on a par with anything else on his 150- film resume. The supporting cast was mostly comprised of regulars at Dublin's Abbey Theatre, providing a rare glimpse of Irish talent that had until then generally avoided any association the English film industry.
