DIRECTOR/PRODUCER: Carol Reed  
PRODUCTION CO: Two Cities Film
SCREENPLAY: R C Sherriff, based on the novel by F L Green
PHOTOGRAPHY: Robert Krasker
EDITOR: Fergus McDonell
MUSIC: ​William Alwyn
WITH: James Mason (Johnny McQueen), Kathleen Ryan (Kathleen Sullivan), Robert Newton (Lukey), Cyril Cusack (Pat), F J McCormick (Shell), William Hartnell (Fencie), Fay Compton (Rosie), Denis O'Dea (Inspector), W G Fay (Father Tom)

​FESTIVALS: Venice

REVIEW

“Carol Reed's Odd Man Out genuinely expanded the limits of cinema aesthetics in the late 40s as Citizen Kane had done at the end of the previous decade. One can harp about some of the film's strained allegory, its touch of sanctimoniousness (particularly in the strict accountability demanded of a largely incidental, but not accidental, killing), and the occasional excesses of shadowy pageantry, but this still does not diminish the sublimity of such scenes as the death-embracing romanticism of Ryan's heroine, of the chirping humanity of McCormick's bird peddler, and of the instinctive compassion of Compton's housewife. Mason, although not a fully articulated tragic hero, is also a magnetic presence as a wounded IRA chieftain on a doomed nighttime odyssey in search of deliverance.

Reed's stylized direction, the lyricism of the Sherriff-Green script, the William Alwyn score, and the darkling magic of Robert Krasker's night photography combine to make Odd Man Out one of the enduring masterpieces of the age of anguished black-and-white. Harold Pinter has even somewhat legitimized the film by having the characters of Old Times debate the respective merits of Newton's and McCormick's performances."

– Andrew Sarris and Tom Allen, Village Voice

FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS

Auckland  
Monday, 11 March, 6.15pm 

​​​Nelson     
Wednesday, 10 April, 6.00pm

Palmerston North
​Wednesday, 08 May, 6.00pm

Canterbury
Monday, 26 August, 7.00pm​

Wellington     
Monday, 18 November, 6.15pm

​Whanganui  
Monday, 25 November, 7.00pm​
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