Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict

Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

HotToastyRag The next time you're in the mood for a tense, well-acted, rather unsettling drama, check out Carol Reed's overlooked British drama Odd Man Out. While it received a BAFTA for Best British Film, hardly anyone in America has ever heard of it.James Mason stars as the head of an Irish rebellious group, and he's been staying with his girlfriend, Kathleen Ryan, for six months, hiding from the police since his escape from prison. While in the middle of a robbery with his fellow members, Robert Beatty, Cyril Cusack, and Dan O'Herlihy, James gets shot. The rest of the movie both moves quickly and drags, as James tries to stay alive and away from the police. Kathleen helps hide him, but he's losing blood and there are several witnesses who could, at any point, give him up.James Mason gives a fantastic performance, and it's a credit to his talent that he'd able to carry a movie while spending most of his time with very little energy because of a gunshot wound. He's truly magnetic-and it doesn't hurt that he looks incredibly handsome-and easily gains the audience's sympathy even though he's a criminal. If you're a James Mason fan, you're definitely going to want to rent this one. Just keep in mind it's heavy, and pretty violent for its time.

christopher-underwood Ignoring the rather unlikely IRA meeting over tea and biscuits at Granny's house prior to a planned armed raid, the first half of this film is great. The pace is furious, the exchanges between the men and women believable and the dark and dismal Belfast streets look amazing. Almost noir like as the film progresses with tension and passions high, we are swept along as road vehicles swerve and skid and 'real' children play in the street and plead for 'pennies' or 'fags'. Mason is splendid and he has good support with spirited direction and a cinematographer enjoying himself. And then it stops. I imagine just so we can get our breath back and await the next surge but I am starting to wonder just where the film can go. And it goes nowhere. It slips into silliness and then into farce - when Robert Newton gives us his broad and knowing sea captain's wink you know its all over but its a shame and the final dip into sentimentality, telegraphed at the very start of the film, is, well the opposite of 'icing on the cake'.

Thomas H.Prindle In the last scene of the film, Father Tom puts his arm around Shell's shoulder and they walk away together. The film then ends. Both actors died in 1947, the year the film was released. The N.Y. Times review was published three days before F. J. McCormick, the actor who played Shell, died of a brain tumor. For my money, his is the most accomplished performance in the film, which has always been one of my favorites. He was Olivier's choice for the role of First Gravedigger in his Hamlet, a role given to Stanley Holloway after McCormick's death. McCormick was in the original cast of Sean O'Casey's The Plough and the Stars, at the Abbey Theater in Dublin, and is said to have remarked when the audience rioted on the fourth night of the play's run, "Don't blame the actors. We didn't write the play."

anghmho I have always loved this film. I discovered it in my teens, and to me me it has always represented exactly what the film makers said: the unpredictability of the human heart when people meet other people, whether in distress or otherwise.Both my parents emigrated to the United States, one from Scotland and the other from Ireland, both Protestants, and both regarded this film as a masterpiece. Both were pro-British. Which makes me wonder why so many British commenters find fault with this film, particularly with such details as the authenticity of accent and validity of the Republican cause, while neglecting the human aspect of the story, i.e., the remorse and the slow death of the James Mason character. It seems that the British have a deep-seated prejudice against the Irish that gets in the way of seeing any situation from anything other that that prejudiced viewpoint.Comments?