They All Come Out

How can you not like a movie that features a bad guy getting a blowtorch to the face when threatening the handsome young naive hero? And action scenes where they just speed up the film? Good fun.

What starts out as a typical criminals-on-the-lam movie turns into a didactic moral lesson to prove to its probably youthful viewers that crime does not pay. What is surprising is that in spite of the clichés, the talented acting of the principles make the film much more poignant than it could have been. Tom Neal (most memorable in the classic "Detour") plays with youthful sincerity. His conversion makes it hard to believe that later he was involved in a violent and criminal life himself and actually did time for murder. Rita Johnson is completely winning, as opposed to her obnoxious character as Ray Milland's girlfriend in "The Major and the Minor". She brings her own sincerity to her stereotyped character and makes it more believable. The emotional impact of the film is also the result of the script's mixed dramatic and documentary approach showing the characters from inside and out, and Jacques Tourneur's perfect pacing.

Short film made into a full length feature. It highlights how the prisons attempt to rehabilitate people, since most of them will be rejoining society when their sentence is complete. Stars rita johnson as kitty carson (can't help but think of kit carson, famous american outdoorsman, fighting man.) she's the moll for the madigan gang, which is sent up after pulling a bank job. They try to rehab joe (tom neal) and kitty. Reno the boss was sent to alcatraz. And it looks like actual footage from alcatraz and chillicothe prisons. The prison psychiatrist was charles lane; for a time, he held the record for playing the most bit parts in films. Not sure if that's still true. They sure weren't very delicate about the phsych prison...they show us the sign that says "U. S. hospital for defective delinquents." real nice. The film is okay... seems to be a propaganda piece instructing crooks on what to expect when the enter prison. Probably would have been more enjoyable if they dropped the extra boring intro and epilogue at the beginning and end. Directed by jacques tourneur, who had been doing mostly shorts prior to this. Actress rita johnson died at 52 from trauma caused by a hair dryer falling on her head. Bizarre. Tom neal died at 58.

"They all came out" is the first feature film made by Jacques Tourneur in US, after a series of short features directed for MGM in the 1930s.

In fact this one too first was conceived to be a short documentary about federal prisons. In his interview given in 1964 to Simon Mizrahi, Tourneur describes complicated story of the making of the movie. First director went to Washington where he visited different prisons in order to film documentary. When the short film was ready, Louis B. Mayer saw it and asked Tourneur to add more 20 minutes of footage and turn it into something of a half-feature, as an experiment. At this time Tourneur in cooperation with John Higgins wrote a story, which became the story of the film, about a young man that goes out of jail and tries to re-enter normal life while his former friends prepare to commit another crime and drag him along. Tourneur filmed it and showed it to L. B. Mayer again, who end up liking it and asking director to add 1/2 hour more and turn it into feature film. Tourneur and Higgins had to put all their imagination to work in order to invent some new scenes and make movie longer. After seeing the film it was virtually impossible to understand that it went through these three stages in it´s making unless you knew all about it before. Quite an interesting early work from Jacques Tourneur, worth seeing for addicted movie buff only. 7/10

"They All Come Out" is a most unusual film from MGM. In some ways, it's a traditional crime drama but about midway through the picture it changes to a pseudo-documentary about the prison system and how it sorts prisoners according to their willingness to be rehabilitated.

When the story begins, Joe (Tom Neal) is out of work and hungry. When he meets Kitty (Rita Johnson) he thinks his luck is improving, as she buys him some food and takes him with her on a cross-country drive. However, she works for Reno Madigan, a career criminal who runs a gang who robs banks. Soon, Joe is their driver and soon after that, the gang is captured.

The next portion of the story shows a very detailed account about how federal prisons operated back in the day. Much time in the film is spent showing how the prisoners are sorted according to their likelihood of being rehabilitated. Joe is a first-time offender, and they offer his job training and more. Reno, naturally, is NOT an ideal candidate and his behaviors soon result in his being sent to Alcatraz. But there's much more to it than this...as well as an exciting and satisfying finale.

Despite the film seeming a bit overly idealistic at times, it never is dull and first time director Jacques Tourneur did a great job with this B-movie. It also helped that despite being a B, the budget was bigger than usual and allowed for filming at various penitentiaries across the nation. Worth your time.