Trailer—The Sellout

The Sellout

NEVER SAW THIS FILM BEFORE TONIGHT, IT WAS A GOOD SURPRISE, L AM SURE IT LANDED AS A SECOND FEATURE ON A DOUBLE BILL.I DONT REMEMBER SEEING ANY ADS IN THE NYC NEWS PAPERS OR THE THEATRE WHERE IT WOUL DHAVE OPENED ON BROADWAY, AS WAS MOST FILMS IN 1952. IT WOULD HAVE BE SHOWN ONLY AS A SECOND FEATURE FROM DAY ONE.

... they write off Audrey Totter leaving that string untied. 8 for good to great, 7 for good to great with a flaw(s) - not having Audrey Totter end with the protagonist.

Others have summed up the plot in far more detail; so suffice to say, this MGM second-feature has Pigeon taking centre stage in a Smalltown USA, man-against-the-mob story of a newspaper editor getting bogged down in the mire of police corruption he's battling to expose. Despite being relatively full of incident the action is not exactly rivetingly staged, but then the script allocates much more time to wordy exposition than it does the kind of noir-ish trappings that might otherwise befit this type of plot. That said there's a full rogue's gallery of a B-cast embodying themes of wasted lives and silent witnesses which, for the running time, was enough to carry this viewer through to the compellingly executed courtroom climax.

MGM wandered out of its league when it made "The Sellout" and the result is a mildly entertaining thriller that doesn't have much tension. All the pieces are in place -- Walter Pidgeon as a crusading newspaper editor, John Hodiak as a government sleuth, Audrey Totter as the sexy pianist at a sleazy roadhouse. But whereas Warner Bros. would have given the tale a hard edge, it comes up sorta' soft in Metro's hands. Perhaps the best performances in the film go to the villains, led by Thomas Gomez as a brutal, corrupt sheriff and Everett Sloane as his smarmy mouthpiece. They're fine. But something's not quite right when the villains stroll off with the movie.

MGM Decided late in the Game to start Producing these Types of Street-Level, Contemporary, Crime and Corruption Movies that RKO and WB had been doing quite Effectively for Years. But as was Almost Always the Case, They just didn't have it, in both Style and Tone. This One is not Pure Film-Noir but does have some of the Elements. The Jail Room and Hideout Scenes are the Best. The Actors do give it some Noir Feel, more than most of the Set-Ups and there is Enough Sleaziness to give the Film Gravitas. The Final Act Courtroom Scenes pretty much put an End to the Edginess, Concluding with a Straight Forward and Preachy Blandness. Overall worth a View for the Better Parts but Pales in Comparison to the more Hard-Boiled, Gritty Stuff that was Around at the Time.

Idealistic and respected newspaper editor Walter Pidgeon (as Haven D. Allridge) is accosted by corrupt sheriff Thomas Gomez (as Kellwin "Casey" Burke) in a nearby town and treated poorly in jail. Vowing to "skin this tin badge off that sloppy shirt of yours if it's the last thing I do," Mr. Pidgeon wants his newspaper to help blast the nasty Sheriff out of office. Then, suddenly, he becomes "The Sellout" and stops his exposé. Following a likely murder, state attorney John Hodiak (as Charles "Chick" Johnson) and detective Karl Malden (as Buck Maxwell) attempt to prosecute the case, but find Pidgeon uncooperative. The transition of leading men is awkward, but this is an engaging little drama, with a nice supporting cast. ****** The Sellout (5/30/52) Gerald Mayer ~ John Hodiak, Walter Pidgeon, Karl Malden, Thomas Gomez

A slow, talky, noirish drama that's pretty light on the noir and pretty heavy on everything that makes movies not very interesting. I was drawn to this by the promise of seeing Audrey Totter, one of my favorite noir actresses, but unfortunately she plays a good girl in this one, which is nowhere nearly as fun as when she's playing a femme fatale, and she's sadly underused. With all due respect to Walter Pidgeon and John Hodiak, if Totter is in the film, it's her face I want to see, not theirs. Grade: C-

Dealing with police corruption in a small American city, The Sellout isn't all that far away from films like The Phenix City Story or Kansas City Confidential. Walter Pidgeon plays a crusading journalist trying to get the goods on bent sheriff Thomas Gomez before Gomez gets the goods on him. The MGM cast is solid throughout, including John Hodiak as the reluctant out of town prosecutor, Karl Malden as the policeman assisting him, and good ol' Whit Bissell as a whistleblower. There's a small role for Audrey Totter--whose place in the credits implies a more significant part--and oily Everett Sloane is excellent as the misguided local lawyer. There's not much original here, but the film takes itself seriously and reminds the viewer of a time when it was possible for independent journalism to hang the bad guys out to dry.