ODD MAN OUT (1947)

In a city in Northern Ireland (not named but clearly Belfast), a group of men belonging to an underground political organization (not named but clearly the IRA) are plotting the robbery of a mill office. Johnny McQueen, the gang leader, was imprisoned for illegally supplying weapons to the organization but escaped from prison and has been hiding in a safe house with Kathleen and her grandmother for several months. Other gang members aren't sure that Johnny has it in him to participate, and indeed Johnny himself has become disillusioned by the use of violence, but he insists on going along. The robbery goes off but outside, Johnny has a dizzy spell and is shot and wounded by a security guard whom Johnny then shoots (and, we learn later, kills). The men try to get Johnny in the getaway car but he falls out and drags himself, half-unconscious, to a hideaway in an old air raid shelter. The rest of the (almost real time) film consists of his attempts to get to safety with the help of various folks along the way, and it's these folks who become the focus of the story, with Johnny himself largely out of commission, slowly dragging himself across the nighttime city streets; it's possible to see Johnny as a Christ figure, embraced by some, betrayed by others. Dennis, the first gang member to find Johnny, runs decoy for him and is captured on a crowded bus (in an impressively chaotic scene). When Johnny is grazed by a car in the street, two passing women take him home and discover his wound. When the husband of one of the women arrives, they argue about whether to help him or turn him in, and Johnny slips away into a cab, but the cab driver eventually puts him out on the streets in the rain. By this time, the whole town knows that Johnny is on the run and the police are out in force. A raggedy fellow named Shell finds Johnny, now feverish and slipping in and out of a dream state, and wants to essentially sell him to, first, a priest, and later, whoever will pony up money, even the police. A slightly crazed artist named Lukey, inspired by Johnny's tortured saint look, wants to paint him. Johnny manages to get up on his feet and wanders into a bar where the barkeep hides him in a corner snug until Shell and Lukey show up and start a brawl. As Johnny gets weaker and begins hallucinating, Kathleen, who has decided to pull off a murder/suicide action if she has to, follows his trail through streets, now filling with snow, to a final showdown with police.

Carol Reed directed this film, a political melodrama (which refuses to engage in politics) shot like a film noir, and it's often compared to Reed's better known The Third Man. I've never liked that movie much; this one is difficult to like though easy to admire—the strength of both movies is their compelling look. This is often referred to as the movie that made James Mason (Johnny, pictured) a star, though oddly enough, Mason is reduced to a supporting role for much of the film, either slumped in hiding, or falling in and out of consciousness and barely aware of his surroundings. Mason is very good and he's always in the viewer's thoughts even when he vanishes from the story from time to time. We get good supporting performances from Cyril Cusack and Robert Beatty as fellow gang members, F.J. McCormick as Shell, Robert Newton as Lukey, and Kathleen Ryan as Kathleen. The two-hour movie is slowly paced and I got fidgety at times, but the real draw here is the visual presentation, a city at night full of shadows and rain and desperate faces, and some interesting interiors, especially the bar and Lukey's loft. The rain turns to snow later in the film, and it adds a stark beauty to the nighttime streets. This is one of the few non-Christmas themed movies I can think of where snow is an important element. A title crawl lets us know that, despite being set in a city of political unrest, the movie is concerned only with the "conflict in the hearts of the people" who get involved. Indeed, as in other IRA-themed films like The Informer or Young Cassidy, politics are barely present—this can be viewed simply as a noirish crime movie, and that’s probably how it's best appreciated. [TCM]