By David in TN
friday, december 26, 2025 at 3:16:00 p.m. est
TCM's Film Noir of the Week at 12:30 and 10 a.m.is Carol Reed's Odd Man Out (1947) with James Mason, Robert Newton, Kathleen Sullivan, Cyril Cusack, P.J. McCormack, Denis O'Dea, W.G. Fay and Dan O'Herlihy
James Mason (in one of the finest performances of his career) is the local IRA leader in Belfast, who has been hiding out in the home of the woman (Sullivan) who loves him ever since his escape from prison six months before. He and his comrades stick up a local mill to obtain funds. The heist went wrong and Mason was wounded.
Carol Reed was criticized by both sides of "favoritism." Politics aside, Reed's film is considered by many a masterpiece of film noir.
N.S.: From 1947-1951, starting with Odd Man Out (1947), Carol Reed went on a masterpiece run. In 1951, Reed continued his trilogy with Ralph Richardson and Bobby Henrey starring in The Fallen Idol, written by Graham Greene. In 1949, Reed and Greene peaked with The Third Man, starring Joseph "King" Cotten, as pulp fiction writer Holly Martins, loose in Vienna shortly after The War, with Orson Welles stealing every scene he was in, as murderous black marketeer Harry Lime.
I rank The Third Man as the 11th-greatest picture ever made, after:
1. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
2. Citizen Kane (1941)
3. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
4. It Happened One Night (1934)
5. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
6. Shane (1953)
7. The Godfather (1972)
7. The Godfather, Part II (1974)
9. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
9. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Saturday, December 27, 2025
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TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning is James V. Kern's The Second Woman (1951) with Robert Young, Betsy Drake, John Sutton.
Film Noir Guide: "The film opens with Young inside a garage running his car's motor. Young's current girlfriend (Drake) narrates the events that have brought him to this point. Young's fiancee had been killed in an automobile accident a year earlier, and his recent paranoid behavior has been attributed by the family doctor to the guilt he feels as the driver of the vehicle."
"But strange, unexplained things have been happening to Young since the accident--an expensive painting has faded, his rosebush has died, his dog has been poisoned, his horse has broken its leg, and his house has burned down."
"Is it all just bad luck? Is Young unconsciously doing these things to punish himself? Drake tries to help despite Young's efforts to dissuade her from playing detective. Sutton plays a nasty co-worker with an obvious dislike for Young. It's a bit slow, but the scenery is beautiful, and the surprise ending is enjoyable."
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