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.

"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.

A quasi-documentary that starts as a crime caper and ends as a dramatized tutorial on the American penal system, this film is fairly comprehensive in explaining the options available to prisoners, depending upon their histories and attitudes. It especially emphasizes the differences between correctional or reform facilities and those dedicated to penitence or punishment.

The problem with the film is its one-sided view of things. In the real world, every guard, warden and board member is not so altruistic or benign. And politics can interfere with good intentions. Still, it paints a picture of a model prison system that is worth keeping in mind.

The film also minimizes the extent to which anti-social inmates and their social structures make meaningful reform (of individuals) extremely difficult. In today's world, this film might be considered naïve.

But the concept of justice is at the heart of the film and it rings just as true today.

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.

B pictures don't come more B than this offering from Jacques Tourneur, but despite the usual flaws that come from a limited budget, most notably less than stellar acting (Rita Johnson and Bernard Nedell partially excepted) and extremely primitive sets and outdoor locations, this fine director in his first feature already shows the pacing and tonal skills that would render "Out Of The Past" one of the five best noirs and "Cat People" the best of the Lewton creep fests. In just under seventy five minutes Tourneur manages not only to bring to life five gangsters but also to follow them through the prison system with forays into the various gradations of incarceration, ranging from corrupt local jail with its inmates kangaroo court, to grim, federal maximum security (with a brilliant brief glance at bleak Alcatraz), to the relatively lenient honor farms ,with side excursions into a prison psychiatric facility, as well as a womans prison (which I noted with amusement in 1939 resembled an Ethan Allen Furniture showroom). So even though the film at times resembles an infomercial for Penal Rehabilitation (I sure as hell didn't believe that the anti woman psycho inmate would be magically cured by a work stint in the fresh air!) it's an impressive debut for its director. Give it...natch...a B.

PS...Dumb title. Sounds like a slogan for spot remover.