- Set in Northern Ireland during a time of, as the film's introduction puts it, "struggle between the law and an illegal organisation," Carol Reed's Odd Man Out is one of the most unique films noir I've seen. At the head of the illegal organization, clearly modeled after the IRA, is Johnny McQueen (James Mason), whose recent bank robbery leaves him badly wounded and an innocent man dead. Johnny's accomplices (Robert Beatty, Roy Irving, Cyril Cusack, and a young Dan O'Herlihy!) all get swept up in the ensuing dragnet, but Johnny manages to stash himself in an air raid shelter. The rest of the film follows Johnny as he staggers through the city, trying to survive and barely keeping out of reach of the police.
- The film's most interesting suggestion is that the average resident of this unnamed city is equally afraid to run afoul of the police and the illegal organization. Two women (Beryl Measor, Ann Clery) try to nurse him back to health, but he flees. A cab driver (Joseph Tomelty) unintentionally smuggles Johnny across a police blockade, but refuses to assist him further. A crook (Maureen Delaney) tips off the police detective (Denis O'Dea) to improve her reputation, while a poor man (F.J. McCormick) seeks to help Johnny in anticipation of a reward. A bartender (William Hartnell) only wants Johnny out of the bar. The film's most bizarre character (Robert Newton), an eccentric painter, sees Johnny exclusively as an objet d'art. The only people who really care about Johnny himself are the woman who loves him (Kathleen Ryan), her grandmother (Kitty Kirwan), and Johnny's old parish priest (W.G. Fay).
- While I found much of the film's plot to be rather unstimulating -- there's really only so much you can do with a dying man lurching through town -- Reed and cinematographer Robert Krasker, both of whom would go on to film The Third Man, do a really outstanding job depicting a shadow-haunted city consisting entirely of alleys, tunnels, bars, and cobblestone streets (with Belfast providing many of the exterior locations). Likewise, Johnny's disturbing hallucinations, in which he imagines himself alternately in jail, with beer-bubble friends, or being judged by a panel of paintings, add an element of the surreal to the story. If nothing else, Odd Man Out grants James Mason the rare opportunity to play a character who is neither snooty nor condescending. Unfortunately, I enjoy him more as an actor when he operates in those modes.
- Based on a novel by F. L. Green.
