A wounded Irish nationalist leader attempts to evade police following a failed robbery. Action takes place in Belfast, Northern Ireland.Filmmaker Roman Polanski has repeatedly cited "Odd Man Out" as his favorite film. Polanski feels that Odd Man Out is superior to "The Third Man" (1949), generally considered to be Reed's masterpiece: "I still consider it as one of the best movies I've ever seen and a film which made me want to pursue this career more than anything else. I always dreamt of doing things of this sort or that style. To a certain extent I must say that I somehow perpetuate the ideas of that movie in what I do." Respectfully, I have to disagree with Polanski. "The Third Man" is by far the Carol Reed masterpiece, and possibly the greatest film of all time. But that is not to say that "Odd Man Out" is not one of the greats, especially among films that seem to have been forgotten.

After having greatly enjoyed director Carol Reed's fantastic Film Noir The Fallen Idol,I was pleasantly caught by surprise,when a very kind IMDb'er sent me a DVD of a Reed film that I had never heard before.With The Fallen Idol still being on my mind,I excitingly got ready to see Reed track down the odd man out.The plot:The plot-Northern Ireland:Staying underground for 6 months after breaking out of jail,Johnny McQueen decides that he will make his first public appearance by joining up with his fellow gang members to rob all of the money from a mill,which Johnny and the gang plan to use as a way to continue to fund their underground activates.Ignoring his fellow gang members clear unease about him not being ready for the challenge, (partly due to him having recently expressed doubts that violence may not be the best way for the gang to achieve their goal)McQueen and the gang set off to rob every penny from the mill.Sucsessfully getting hold of all the cash,Johnny and the gang rush to the entrance door to make their escape.Sadly for McQueen,a cashier gets hold of him and shoots him in the arm,which leads to Johnny fighting back, (despite having to deal with intense pain from the shot) and accidentally shooting the cashier dead.Terrifyed that their leader has lost all sense of time and place,the gang quickly pull McQueen into the back of their getaway car,and head off to their near by safe house.Arguing amongst themselves over what has just taken place,the group fail to hear Johnny fall out of the car.Finding himself completely alone with the blood draining from his body,McQueen realises that he is going to have to do everything possible to stop the townspeople and the police from discovering him as the odd man out.View on the film:Bringing his own novel to the screen with writer R.C.Sheriff,F.L. Green, (who sadly died at age 50 in 1953) smartly takes a neutral position which never glamorises McQueen and his gangs activities,whilst also showing the police to be less then sharp minded,that allows the viewer to form their own opinion on McQueen and the cops who are on his trail.Along with making McQueen's chase from the police being one that goes farther and farther down a enclosing,mud filled alleyway,Green also brilliantly makes each of the distinctive supporting characters fully dimensional by placing each of them in the cross hairs between McQueen and the police,which leads to each of them being deeply torn between doing the "right thing" and reporting McQueen's whereabouts to the cops,and helping their former friend to remain buried within the starless night of the cities underbelly.Closely focusing on the psychological effects that the blistering mill robbery has on Johnny McQueen's mind,director Carol Reed and cinematography Robert Krasker, (who also worked on Reed's The Third Man)use extraordinary special effects to place the viewer in McQueen's dazed,confused and disorientated mind,with Reed and Krasker pushing the effects at the front of the movie at the precise moments that McQueen finds himself struggling to decide on what is real,and what is a figment of his fear driven imagination.Soacking the movie in a black sky laden Film Noir fog,Reed scatters the second half of the movie,in a never ending,extremely stylish snowfall,which along with showing that the snow is unable to hide McQueen and the police's less than "pure" features,also creates a strong sense of a dark,cold atmosphere engulfing the character's lives,with Reed increasing the pressure and continuing to let the snow fall as the character's imperfections are suffocated in the excellent down beat,snow covered ending.Backed by a tense score from William Alwyn, (who also did the score for Reed's Film Noir The Fallen Idol) and joined by a fabulous supporting cast that includes a firm William Hartnell and a stunning Kathleen Ryan,James Mason, (who would reunite with Reed for the 1953 Film Noir The Man Between) gives an extraordinary performance that rips open McQueen's scrambled mind.Being on his own for a good amount of the movie and also being given a minimum of dialogue,Mason uses his astonishingly subtle body language to show the deep rooted destruction take place in McQueen's mind,as Mason goes from showing McQueen brimming with confidence as he rejoins his gang,to realising that there is nothing at all that he can do,to stop from being discovered as the odd one out.

I was born and brought up in Belfast. Thus I find it very irritating that all the actors in this film speak either with English accents or with accents from the Republic of Ireland. I don't recall hearing one Northern Irish/Belfast accent. It portrays a Belfast which seems to have been manufactured entirely in Hollywood where everyone is misty-eyed about 'The Organisation,' clearly meant to be the IRA, and its perceived struggle against the tyranny of the forces of law and order. Despite this the performances, locations, filming, music and the entire atmosphere are mesmerising. Belfast has never looked so beautiful. Worth seeing for that alone.

This is a remarkable film released in 1947. James Mason is amazing when you consider how few lines he actually speaks. The rest of the cast is extraordinary - Robert Newton, Kathleen Ryan, F.J. McCormick and W.G Fay among others.The scene where Mason is hallucinating and sees the image of Father Tom is unforgettable. From his throne-like chair he says, "We repeated the words without thinking what they meant. But I remember when I was a boy. I remember when I was a child. I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I understood as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things". Just incredible.And the tear wrenching end - Kathleen: "It's all right Johnny. I'm here". Johnny: "Is it far"? Kathleen: "It's a long way, Johnny. But I'm going with you".This film was followed in 1948 by "The Fallen Idol" and in 1949 "The Third Man". Three of Carol Reed's best films and perhaps three of the best films ever made.