Odd Man Out

Carol Reed established himself as a master director with this haunting, lyrical masterpiece about a doomed fugitive. In one of the greatest performances of his illustrious career, James Mason plays Johnny McQueen, an IRA leader who breaks out of jail and then plans a payroll holdup of a mill in Belfast, to fund his underground operations. Although McQueen abhors violence, he uses his gun during the holdup and accidentally kills a man and is himself critically wounded. The driver of the escape car panics and leaves him to stumble away from the robbery. From that point on, McQueen descends into a nightmare as he becomes more and more delirious from his wound. (CineBooks' Motion Picture Guide)