Get Outta Town

I had never heard of Charles Davis, but he directed GET OUTTA TOWN with a sense of purpose, dynamic sequences and crisp dialogue in a strong script by Bob Welling.

I had also never heard of Douglas Wilson, the male lead, but his broken boxer-like nose lends him authenticity.

The female characters are quite interesting: Wilson, playing good for nothing criminal Kelly Olesen - a Nordic surname - has a mother who looks and talks like an Italian, and she has no time for her prodigal son. I came away with the impression that she was the most fatale of all the femmes in the movie.

Cute Jeanne Baird used to be Olesen's girl but in his protracted absence in the docks of San Francisco she took up with his younger brother, who got iced by some bad company that Olesen used to keep. Like his mother - who even lives in the same building - Baird does not want to give him the time of day.

Perhaps the most eye-catching female is dishy Marilyn O'Connor playing the cheating wife of Ricco, the thug who Olesen used to hang around with to perpetrate robberies and other felonies. O'Connor just can't keep her hands off Olesen, to add to all the problems piling up on his lap.

Olesen is trying to tell mother, former girlfriend, the law, and even his former partners in crime that he is a changed man - but not even the cops who cannot pin any crime on him want him in town.

Boasting competent cinematography and a cast of unknowns, this unpretentious short 63' C grade flick moves along at breakneck speed - alas, the downside robbing it of 3 stars is the pointless, open ending that left me feeling like a mouse running in a perpetually turning wheel. Too much ado for nothing.

Carrying a 1960 copyright date but with a decidedly 50's feel, the plot, mood and vivid use of locations of this ultra cheap gangster movie shot out and about in Los Angeles all remarkably anticipate 'Get Carter' ten years later.

Aided by excellent photography by Larry Raimond and second unit cameraman Meridith Nicholson and a rousing jazz score by Bill Holman, Bob Wehling's script is crammed with crackling film noir dialogue. Maybe too much; good as much of the talk is it's at the expense of visual exposition, it's rather slackly paced, and the tremendous dialogue is not always done justice by the frequently amateurish acting.

Described by cop Frank Harding as "Rough as a stucco bathtub", co-producer Douglas Wilson as ex-safe cracker Kelly Oleson looks rather middle-aged in the lead, and almost as old as the actress playing his mother. But we meet some hot chicks along the way, hottest of all being gangster's moll Marilyn O'Connor, who we're expected to believe Kelly slept with solely in the line of duty (like James Bond and Fiona Volpe in 'Thunderball').

"Get Outta Town" is an amazing film. After all, it features a leading man who only made six films (this was his last) and isn't exactly the Hollywood type. It also features a lot of other rather unknown actors. It also has a budget that appears to be negligible. Yet, inexplicably, it's a very good film! I love seeing films like this--little hidden gems just waiting to be discovered.

The plot of "Get Outta Town" is very, very similar to that of the Michael Caine film "Get Carter". However, its character is a bit different and the resolution very different.

It all begins when Kelly learns that his younger brother died. Kelly was a hood and the last time he was in his hometown, folks were afraid of him. Not surprisingly, his mother and ex-girlfriend want nothing to do with him--he's bad news. Yet, he insists that he's changed and wants to turn his life around once and for all. However, his resolution to change is challenged when he learned that his brother MIGHT have been murdered--and he's out for revenge.

Except for a few problems with the ending (it came a bit too quickly and Kelly behaved a bit oddly when confronted by the police), it was a very good film. I liked the dialog and Wilson's acting was surprisingly strong. If you like film noir, this is up your alley. While it isn't quite as dark as many films in the genre, it is a nice tough little picture.

Best thing you can say about this film is that the action moves at a fast pace. Hard knobbed cops talking fast. Gangsters talking fast. Fast hot girls.

If that's your speed, you'll like it.

It's one of those transitional Noir films from the 50's to the 60's. The music is all horns and piano. Jazz. Not like the Noir of earlier years. The direction is more TV than theatre.

Location shots in LA are interesting to watch.

The director did a lot of bit player acting in TV and only directed three films -- with long lapses of time in between. He's OK as a director, considering the actors are larely unknown.

No Citizen Kane, but watchable fare.

When ex-small-time criminal Kelly Olson returns to Los Angeles for his kid brother's funeral, not many people are happy to see him. Not his mother, not his ex-girlfriend, not the cops, and not local hood Rico Lanari. Kelly insists he's gone straight, but nobody believes him. Convinced his brother was murdered, he slips back into his thug ways to get a few answers from a bunch of low-lifes. The acting is okay, the dialog is snappy, and the characters (all unknowns) are realistically sleazy. At a crisp 63 minutes, it feels like one of those high-velocity short stories by guys like Paul Cain and Dashiell Hammett in Black Mask magazine circa 1933. The film gets great support from its gritty locations, namely Bunker Hill and the rooms, corridors, balconies and stairways of the faded Dome Hotel on Grand and Second streets, which would soon afterward be destroyed in a mysterious fire that killed a number of people. Doug Wilson, who plays Kelly, and director Charlie Davis produced "Get Outta Town" with their own money, supposedly, and Beckman Film Corp. released it at some point under the name "Gangster's Revenge." The film credits say: "Get Outta Town," not "Get Out of Town." It's been released on DVD, but it's hard to find, but that shouldn't stop you from looking. It's a lot more convincing than many studio gangster films I've seen from the forties and fifties.