I disagree with the general trend of reviews for this film. I think it's a very strong film. However, it has the feel of a small film...but I think that's what was required here because it's a film about a very small town. Small town -- small film. That's a match.At first glance, it looks as if the plot is going to be pretty simple. Newspaper editor is arrested in a small hick town on false charges and will lead a crusade to clean up the town. Until he uncharacteristically steps back and decides to leave his town completely. Huh? Walter Pidgeon running away? Fortunately, someone takes up the crusade -- but not Pidgeon's son-in-law, a county prosecutor. Hmmmm. A family that has high ideals until they're put to the test? But someone has to lead the charge. So that falls to John Hodiak, a state prosecutor. And he faces a brick wall because everyone is afraid to testify against the small town thugs.Will the newspaper editor testify? And if not, why not? Today's audiences may not believe that there were places like this back before the 1960s. People did sometimes virtually disappear.Walter Pidgeon is quite good here as the newspaper editor; I wonder how he liked a film where for at least part of the time he appeared to be a coward. John Hodiak is very good as the state attorney. Thomas Gomez is good...and disgusting...as the crooked sheriff. Karl Malden is good as an honest cop.I don't find a lot here to criticize. The ending gets -- as a couple have already said -- a little preachy and too idealistic. And, I think they could have made more earlier in the film about the dilemma facing Walter Pidgeon.I liked it and recommend it.

MGM Decided late in the Game to start Producing these Types of Street-Level, Contemporary, Crime and Corruption Movies that RKO and WB had been doing quite Effectively for Years. But as was Almost Always the Case, They just didn't have it, in both Style and Tone.This One is not Pure Film-Noir but does have some of the Elements. The Jail Room and Hideout Scenes are the Best. The Actors do give it some Noir Feel, more than most of the Set-Ups and there is Enough Sleaziness to give the Film Gravitas.The Final Act Courtroom Scenes pretty much put an End to the Edginess, Concluding with a Straight Forward and Preachy Blandness. Overall worth a View for the Better Parts but Pales in Comparison to the more Hard-Boiled, Gritty Stuff that was Around at the Time.

John Hodiak plays a state attorney sent in to investigate corruption in a county that is dominated by a corrupt legal system at the head of which is the sheriff played by Thomas Gomez. Hodiak himself is about to resign his position with the state in order to go into private practice, but is sent to this county after a series of stories have appeared written by newspaper editor Walter Pidgeon, who was arrested in the county for a minor traffic violation and had to spend the night in the jail which houses many other prisoners who don't have enough money to pay their fines, and are used as a work detail (almost a chain gang). Hodiak's priorities are reestablished as he meets a detective on this case played by Karl Malden, who teams with Hodiak. As well he meets up with Audrey Totter, who plays a part as a pianist at a bar known as Amboys, where Gomez seems to go every day after work. With Malden on one side and Totter on the other, and a menacing Thomas Gomez (who could remind one of Orson Welles in Touch of Evil) Hodiak gets more committed to his mission to bring down Gomez and his group, which includes a judge played by Hugh Sanders, and his greasy attorney played by Everett Sloane. As a fifties crusade against organized crime film, The Sellout is not that great, but Gomez' part is right on. As well, Audrey Totter, even though many of her lines are questionable, manages to somehow overcome the script and make something good out the part.

An enviable cast of noir veterans (John Hodiak, Audrey Totter, Walter Pidgeon, Thomas Gomez, Everett Sloane, and Karl Malden) tackling an all-American storyline - a newspaper crusades against municipal corruption - promises something above the ordinary. But The Sellout's promise, like cold fusion's, proves an inflated one; the movie never quite ignites. An editor from a mid-sized city (Pidgeon), visiting his daughter's family in a neighboring county, drives into a speed trap. He's thrown into jail, subjected to a prisoners' kangaroo court, and fined the entire contents of his wallet. Once back, he launches a crusade against this hijacking of the law, lining up witnesses and publishing blistering editorials against Gomez, the sheriff, and county boss Sloane. Then, abruptly, he leaves town and the campaign ceases.A prosecutor from the state capital (Hodiak) is sent to investigate; upon arrival, he's ambushed by a B-girl and shantoozie (Totter) who works at the machine's headquarters, a road house called Amboy's. Her philosophy of life is eloquent: (`Who makes plans? You do the best you can - Sometimes you wish things turned out differently.') But she grows sweet on him and warns him off. With the help of honest cop Malden, Hodiak tries to get to the bottom of the editor's silence, but everywhere encounters a stone wall. It turns out that the corruption runs very close to home....Probably the biggest shortcoming of The Sellout is relegating Totter to a sub-plot that fizzles out too early; she lends the movie whatever quirky subversiveness it shows. For the most part, however, it's four-square - there's little visual excitement - and a little too self-important. Though crowded with incident, it ends up just plodding along. It's also rooted in a now (one hopes) vanished America where out in the boondocks, away from the bright lights of civilization, lurked pockets of unexpected peril. The billboards marking the city limits might have well warned: Beyond here lie monsters.