Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11539 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-08-28
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Formats: Black & White, PAL, Special Edition
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 110 minutes

Synopsis
James Mason stars in this powerful suspense drama as Johnny McQueen, the leader of a quasi-IRA group. When he's wounded in a botched robbery, he becomes the object of an intense police manhunt and must scramble desperately about Belfast in an attempt to escape. Kathleen (Kathleen Ryan), the woman who loves him, also takes off in pursuit of Johnny, hoping to reach him before the police do. In the course of his flight, Johnny encounters an assortment of fascinating characters, making the film as much a portrait of a city as it is the drama of one man's life.

Customer Reviews

Withstands the Test of Time!
Recalling my fondness for James Mason as an actor, I recently bought a DVD of "The Desert Fox." Although Mason is as usual excellent in the title role, the film itself seems so dreadfully dated! I then realized that my continued regard for Mason as an actor actually stems from his performance as Johnny McQueen, in Carol Reed's "Odd Man Out," which I first saw as a child (Mason's luminous interpretation of the dying McQueen has cast a glow on my memory of all his performances, including a hypothetical reading of the telephone book!). I can never forget the scene in the artist's garret when, in a moment of recognition, McQueen speaks "with the tongues of men and of angels."

"Odd Man Out" does not disappoint, even after sixty years. It still brings fresh tears to my eyes. How can the film miss with the nuanced direction of Carol Reed, the haunting music of William Alwyn, and the splendid cinematography of Robert Krasker--to say nothing of the actors? Every character--from the urchins on the street to the anonymous passers-by--some who help; others who hinder--is perfect. Kathleen Ryan gives a beautifully understated performance as the woman who will die for McQueen, and Robert Newton is brilliant in the role of Lukey, an artist, whom starvation has driven beyond the point of madness. The actors, who play Lukey's companions-in-misery--Shell, a down-and-outer looking for rewards, and Tober, a ruined medical student, whose Eton accent speaks of better times--are splendid.

As for Mason, "Odd Man Out" brought him fame as well as the attention of Hollywood, and a subsequent series of mediocre--albeit entertaining--potboilers, in which his gifted performances simply do not compare to his timeless interpretation of the Irish militant, Johnny McQueen. Jamie, we hardly knew you!

A sad, great film by Carol Reed
This is a powerful, tragic movie which is hard to forget. It tells the story of Johnny McQueen (James Mason), an IRA chief in Northern Ireland. He was sentenced to 17 years for robbery but broke out and now has planned to rob a mill to steal money for the cause. He leads three other men and things go wrong. He shoots and kills a clerk and is shot himself. During the chaotic escape he falls from the getaway car and is left on the street. He's seriously injured and probably is bleeding to death. All that evening and night, increasingly dazed and weak, he struggles to find someplace to go and rest. Please note that elements of the plot are discussed.

Odd Man Out is really two stories. One is McQueen's. The other is that of Kathleen Sullivan (Kathleen Ryan), the young woman who loves him and is determined to find and save him. She knows he's terribly hurt and that he'll be hanged if he is caught. She won't let that happen. Despite her Catholic faith and the sympathetic counsel of her elderly priest, she'll shoot Johnny and then herself if she must.

Those Johnny McQueen encounters during the cold and sleeting night may want to help him or may want the reward for his capture, but none want to give him shelter. A prosperous, fat madam welcomes Johnny's team and learns where they left Johnny. Then she turns them in and listens as they're shot down in front of her establishment. Two sisters find Johnny lying in the road and take him into their house. They bandage him but cannot keep him, and send him out again into the rain. A crazed painter (Robert Newton) finds him in a bar and takes him to his studio, where he wants to paint the dying face. All the while the police are slowly narrowing their search. At last Kathleen finds him. He is so dazed he can only know that he is with her now and is safe. As they stand against an iron fence, police with flashlights move toward them. Kathleen has a gun, but she finds she cannot use it to take Johnny's life and then her own. So she does what she must. She fires two shots, knowing the police will shoot down both of them.

So is this film Carol Reed's attempt to tell a story of redemption or the power of love or the fragile strands humans rely upon? Who knows. I'm not comfortable analyzing a film like Odd Man Out. All I know is that it is bleak, sad and great.

It was shortly after this film and, a year earlier, The Seventh Veil, that Mason left Britain for Hollywood. He always seemed to me to be one of the best film actors to come along. At the end of his life, in his last role in a movie, he starred at 76 in The Shooting Party. Mason was just as subtle and magnetic an actor then as he was in Odd Man Out.

Magnificent
I had never seen this film before although I have always been fond of James Mason. But this is a magnificent film to add to my classic film collection. Mason's performance, especially the scene in the artist's studio, is superb and the ensemble cast is especially good. How did Robert Newton manage to play a drunk whilst not being his usual drunken self?

And the lighting....the crisp black and white imagery beautifully directed by Carol Reed contributed to the sense of hopelessness and impending doom.

I suppose it was set in Belfast and I'm pleased they played southern Irish accents rather than heavy Belfast - not good for authenticity perhaps but easier on the ear for a non Irish audience.