ODD MAN OUT is the kind of film that stays within your film memory long after you've seen it--as in my case, writing this from a memory seared by the experience of watching JAMES MASON in one of his greatest roles as Johnny McQueen, on the lam from the law after a botched robbery ends in the death of a man and he becomes a hunted animal.
Visually, the film is the dark and shadowy kind of film noir that has him stumbling into the cold and snowy landscape, wounded and intent on protecting himself from the elements and the mob of people who want to see him dead. Mason's predicament is much like Victor McLaglen's in THE INFORMER, where he finds himself an outsider with little chance of survival in a world where danger lurks everywhere for anyone caught in a web of intrigue and espionage.
While the IRA is never mentioned, we understand that this is the criminal organization Johnny led and his fate is more or less sealed once he is on the lam.
Brilliant direction by Carol Reed, an anguished performance by the wounded fugitive, JAMES MASON, and wonderful support from Kathleen Ryan and Robert Newton, makes this a superior character study of the good and evil in mankind.
Well worth seeing and probably one of Mason's most memorable roles.
