The Sellout

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.

This was something of a frustrating film, as although peopled with solid actors of reasonable note, it gives much evidence of being a holdover from the early talkie days of B films that ran about 62 minutes and left miles of storyline on the cutting room floor or just not filmed at all. At 83 minutes, it didn't have to be this way, but the films jumps days and weeks, and important events and storylines are mentioned after they have taken place offscreen and almost as an afterthought. For example, at one point, Hodiak mentions that 43 of 55 witnesses have reneged on their statements and/or on their willingness to testify, but that 43 number comes out of the blue after we have seen only one witness express some trepidation.

I should also add that much in this story seems reflective of my own experience. When I was in the army (1963-1965) a decade after this film, and stationed in Western Maryland, when driving there from New York, we were picked up more than once by police for speeding, having a light out, whatever, and instructed to drive behind the police vehicle to one of several (what looked like) county stores that had a set up in the back where someone (probably a minor judge) seemed to sit all night, just waiting for the cops to bring in miscreants like ourselves so that he could fine us $15 or $20 before sending us on our way. And this is how they treated the U.S. military ($78.11 a month pay). I can't imagine how others might have been treated (but certainly not as badly as in this film, I hope).

Anyway, the performances are all solid. Pidgeon kind of disappears a bit less than halfway through the film, and from that point on the real stars seem to be Hodiak, Malden, Gomez, Sloane and the always-excellent Audrey Totter, until Pidgeon comes back in near the end. The final courtroom scene holds the interest, and both Hodiak and Hugh Sanders (as the good judge and in, given its relative brevity, probably the best role he ever had; he gets to make the longest speech in the film) do well in it, but I was surprised to see Karl Malden billed 7th or 8th considering that he had just won a Supporting Actor AA for STREETCAR and, quite honestly, his is one of the larger roles in the film. And Frank Cady has maybe his best screen role, far larger than in the same year's HIGH NOON. Cameron Mitchell, in one of his first films, also doesn't have much to do, but his character is pivotal to the story.

All in all, an enjoyable little crime drams with a lot of holes in it, saved by the performances.

The Sellout is a good B picture crime drama out of MGM using a solid heaping helping of their B picture contract players.

Newspaper editor Walter Pigeon and a friend Whit Bissell get caught up in a speedtrap in the rural part of the county they reside in. Given the Code was in place in 1951, I'm sure they would have been brutalized far more graphically in the jail of Thomas Gomez the corrupt sheriff of the county. Still and all it's enough to fill Pigeon with a firm resolve to get Gomez. Even without the help of local prosecutor Cameron Mitchell who is Pigeon's son-in-law.

But a crusading special prosecutor from the State Attorney General and an honest city cop played by John Hodiak and Karl Malden respectively get into the picture due to Pigeon's hard hitting articles. There's far more than a speedtrap involved. Then Pigeon's ardor suddenly cools.

I think that anyone who's seen a lot of movies can figure the ending out from here. But these are a good group of some of the best players around. One other reviewer mentioned that Audrey Totter's role as a woman of easy virtue is left up in the air. I would guess the editors had more to do with it than anything else.

Thomas Gomez delivers the best performance in the film. He's a viciously evil man and he drives his corrupt lawyer Everett Sloane crazy. Sloane tries very hard to fix things without violence or crudity. But Gomez just can't be controlled.

It's a good film, very much like The Phoenix City Story that would come along a few years later.

Walter Pidgeon, John Hodiak, Tomas Gomez, Audrey Totter, Cameron Mitchell, Karl Malden and Everett Sloan all star in "The Sellout," a 1952 film. Pidgeon plays a well-respected newsman, Haven Allridge, who runs afoul of a corrupt sheriff (Gomez). Despite the fact that he and his department have been using violence and other illegal tactics unopposed because people are afraid, Allridge decides to take him down. He uses the power of the press to bring the matter to everyone's attention, and soon an indictment is called for. Since Allridge's son-in-law (Mitchell) works for the court, a special prosecutor (Hodiak) is brought in. Unfortunately, when it comes time for the indictment proceedings, everyone seems to have forgotten what they said previously.

This is an okay movie, although predictable, with good performances. It does point out that ethics aren't just for people who have nothing to lose, when it's easy. True ethics are for the tough times, when one is faced with huge losses.

Good cast.

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-