272 - Odd Man Out, 1947, United Kingdom. Dir. Carol Reed.

Friday, September 29, 2017

272 - Odd Man Out, 1947, United Kingdom.  Dir. Carol Reed.

"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."

So says Johnny, quoting Paul, speaking to Father Tom in a hallucination.

Johnny is sitting in the loft apartment of the painter Lukey, having his portrait painted but not by his choice.  He has been dragged here, wounded, shot in the left upper-arm, having lost blood, dehydrated, exhausted, a fugitive from justice.

Johnny is the leader of a gang of rebels in a political movement in Belfast, Northern Ireland.  He was sentenced to 17 years in prison but escaped after 8 months and has been in hiding for 6 months.  He went into hiding with his gang--Dennis, Pat, Nolan, and Murphy--at the home of the girl who loves him, Kathleen Sullivan, and her Grannie.

While in prison, he had time to think about his deeds.  He has begun to question the effectiveness of violence.  He has begun to wonder if perhaps political persuasion would produce better results than bombing.  He shares his thoughts with the gang.

But they have not been sitting in prison reflecting.  They have been out on the front lines fighting.  Working.  Planning.  They do not listen to his new ideas.

They have a mill to rob and they had best get on with it.

Johnny is the leader, so he must go.  Dennis offers to go in his place.  He says Johnny is not fit for it, that he should stay back and rest.  Kathleen concurs with this appeal.  She wants him to be safe.  To stay with her.  To let her minister to him.

But Johnny is the leader, so he must go.  And when they rob the mill and make their escape, a man accosts Johnny on his way to the getaway car.  The others are in.  Pat is driving.  Nolan and Murphy are in the back seat.  Johnny hesitates when his eyes go blurry and he cannot set where to step down the steps.  And when the man catches him, they tussle.  They wrestle on the ground.  The man shoots at Johnny and misses.  Johnny shoots at the man and does not miss.  Then he jumps in the back of the car.

And Pat speeds off before the other two can reel him in off the running board.  Against their appeals, Pat drives fast.  He sideswipes a horse and buggy, on Johnny's side of the car, and knocks Johnny off into the street.  He drives, according to them, another hundred yards before stopping to check on Johnny.  They beg him to go back.  He hesitates.  They hesitate.  Everybody hesitates.  They look back.  Johnny jumps up on his limping leg with his bleeding shoulder and scuttles off to a side street.

Pat rationalizes that he had better go forward, and that he will catch Johnny around the block.

They never find him.

They return to Kathleen's place.  As one might imagine, she becomes quite upset with the news of their blunder.  His life is at stake!

Meanwhile, Johnny has holed up in an air raid bunker.  The War is recently over, but the Irish war is continuing as always.  And Belfast has bunkers in neighborhoods throughout the town in which people might take shelter from bombing.

Johnny takes shelter.

He dreams he has awakened from a dream.  That he is really still in prison and that the escape was a dream.  He tells everything to the prison guard.  Then he really wakes up.  The prison guard is a little girl come to fetch a runaway ball.  She turns and runs away.

A couple take shelter in the shelter to canoodle.  At least he tries.  She has changed her mind.  She is nervous.  She does not like the location.  It feels unsafe.  She thinks she sees a man in the corner shadows.  He lights a match.  They approach.  They do see a man in the corner shadows.  Immediately, they recognize him as Johnny.

Everyone will recognize Johnny.  His face is known to the town.  He cannot go anywhere without being spotted.

For the next near-hour Carol Reed will take the viewer on a chase through the dark streets and alleys, yards and houses, as the police play cat and mouse.

Reed borrows from German expressionism, French neo-realism, and American film noir, as he uses hard high key lighting, wide angle lenses, deep focus, and dark shadows to enhance the fast paced drama.

Until he shifts gears.  Switches channels.  Changes pace.  And stops to reflect on the meaning of life.

With a menagerie of character actors who parade about as Johnny goes missing.

The buggy gin Jimmy.  The priest Father Tom.  The derelict Shell.  The painter Lukey.  The med school dropout Tober.  The bar owner Fencie.

Shell keeps birds, and he talks doubly to Kathleen and Father Tom while holding one of his cages, using it as a metaphor for prison and for the lack of freedom in life.  He knows where Johnny is and offers to sell that knowledge for a price.  He overshoots at one thousand pounds.

Father Tom appeals to Shell, tries to persuade him to turn to faith rather than profit.  Tells him that money will not buy him happiness.  Shell asks if faith will feed his belly.  The answer is Yes.

Lukey is in search of the perfect eyes to use in painting portraits.  All of his models have been lacking in that special quality he seeks.  He himself is lacking in confidence.  He refers to his works as failures.

Tober quit medical school and now does botch jobs for the underworld.  He works on Johnny's shoulder.  Finally, after hours have passed.

Kathleen herself has long talks with Father Tom about her desire for a double mercy killing.  What?  Well, it was in the novel so Carol Reed felt obligated to include it.  But it comes out of nowhere.  It seems to be included to give the film seriousness.  Importance.  Thoughtfulness.  Reflection.

Or a bad choice by the screenwriter.

We have lost our narrative tautness.  We are floundering in philosophizing.  Cut to the chase!

Literally.

And finally, we do.  Shell finds Johnny.  Shell loses Johnny.  Shell finds Johnny again.  And somehow we are up here in Lukey's loft painting Johnny's picture as Johnny slips into a hallucinatory vision.

All the paintings move off the walls and arrange themselves in rows upon the floor, as soldiers, ready to march at Johnny.  They spin around him.  Father Tom appears.  He appeals to Johnny.

This surrealist moment could have been created by Salvador Dali, as Dali did in films such as Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound and Archie Mayo's Moontide.  But it was not.

And Johnny remembers the words of his childhood.

He apologizes to Father Tom.

"We've always drowned your voice with our shouting, haven't we, Father?  We never really listened to you.  We repeated the words without thinking what they meant.  But I remember . . . when I was a boy.  I remember."

Johnny stands.  He continues.  Dramatically.

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.  Though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not charity, I am nothing."

This is at least the third film we have watched this year where 1 Corinthians 13 has formed the theme.

The first one we saw was 017 - Three Colors: Blue, 1993, by Krzysztof Kieslowski.  The chorale that was being written throughout the film is sung in the end, using 1 Corinthians 13 as the lyrics.

The second one we saw was 054 - Andrei Rublev, 1966, by Andrei Tarkovsky.  1 Corinthians 13 is spoken in voice-over as Andrei Rublev plays with a little girl in the church.  The girl interrupts it by splashing milk on him.  And he laughs.  And he loves.

Love never fails.

Johnny is played by British film star James Mason, who is great for this role.  We saw him in 029 - Bigger Than Life, 1956, by Nicholas Ray, and we commented on his thick voice, like maple syrup spiked with bourbon.

We then referred to this film in 40 - Tess, 1979, by Roman Polanski.  Polanski has cited Odd Man Out as one of his favorite films, and he watched it more than thirty times.

Meanwhile, the character actors are drawn largely from the local Abbey Theatre, including one of the founders of the theatre, W. G. Fay as Father Tom.

Kathleen Ryan powerfully underplays her role as Kathleen Sullivan.  She keeps her feelings beneath the surface and delivers her lines straightly, with the depth of her heart coming through her eyes.

There is a brief moment in a dance hall where the joint is hopping and the jukers are jiving, and the camera looks at a sign reading, "No jitterbugging."  No jitterbugging!  In the midst of the drama, Reed inserted his humor.

The action follows the classical unities.  One event happens in one city in one day.  In this case 8 hours.

And rather than moving with ever-increasing tension towards High Noon, we move, with repeated references to clocks, ever closer to Low Midnight.

When the clock strikes 12:00.

And our lovers will escape.

Or be separated.

Or die.

Let us hope they can get to the ship in time.