Get Outta Town

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.

A former hood (Doug Wilson) returns to his old stomping grounds to find out who killed his brother. The cops aren't too happy to see him; one of them tells him to get outta town because he stinks. He refers to Wilson as "rough as a stucco bathtub." Wilson's mother isn't too happy to see him and tells him to get outta town. Wilson's former girlfriend (Jeanne Baird) tells him to ... well, you get the idea. Wilson decides to look up his old pals (with classic names like Rico and Tony), but first he runs into Rico's wife (Marilyn O'Connor). The two quickly go to her apartment for some tonsil hockey, and, for a change, she doesn't tell him to get outta town. As the plot develops, we meet a goon named Rocky and a jerk named Squirrel. Meanwhile, Wilson and O'Connor exchange more saliva. Then Wilson collects some bruises and contusions because somebody wants him outta town. Eventually, we find out what happened to his brother, and Wilson gets outta town.

Wilson is decent in the lead, although the way his hair protrudes over his head was a bit much. All the babes in the cast (including extras) are great looking ... except for the crone playing Wilson's mother. The jazz score is snappy, and the script is pretty good.

The cops ran Doug Wilson out of Los Angeles years ago. Now, with his brother dead, he's back in town for the funeral, and no more welcome than before -- even his mother doesn't want to see him. He still has some connections, and the story he hears doesn't make sense. He starts investigating.

It's a cheap feature, with every credit by folks who worked in the lower fringes of Hollywood. Sometimes they might have had twenty credits, sometimes none. The writer, Bruce Wehling, is best remembered for EEGAH! The director never helmed another movie, the cinematographer had bottom-of-the-barrel credits. I was astonished at how well it worked.

Part of it is that it's a good story, like something that Donald Westlake wrote as Richard Stark, or GET CARTER with a moral heart to it. To me it's indicative of how much talent there was in Hollywood that never really got a chance. The script is good, the pace is fast, the acting is good and the camerawork is supple. What more do you want from a one-hour movie?

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.