Tonight's Movie: The Sellout (1952)
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Walter Pidgeon leads the fine cast as Haven Allridge, a newspaper editor who has a bad experience with the sheriff (Thomas Gomez) in a neighboring town. Allridge vows to expose the sheriff's kangaroo court and make-it-up as you go style of law enforcement and initially has the support of a significant number of witnesses whose stories are published in Allridge's paper.
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The sterling cast also includes Audrey Totter as a roadhouse singer, Frank Cady as the roadhouse owner who secretly gives testimony to Chick and Buck, Paula Raymond and Cameron Mitchell as Allridge's daughter and son-in-law, Everett Sloane as the sheriff's sleazy attorney, Griff Barnett as the attorney general, Jeff Richards as a witness, and Hugh Sanders as the judge. Character actors such as Burt Mustin, Whit Bissell, and Roy Engel are also in the cast. Walter Pidgeon's granddaughter is played by Nadine Ashdown, a cute child actress who was in a number of films of the '50s.
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The film is a bit of a curiosity in that it's comprised of two distinct sections with two different leading men. Initially the film is all Pidgeon's story, but then he vanishes and it becomes John Hodiak's movie, with Pidgeon reappearing in some final scenes. Hodiak is excellent, and he and Karl Malden share some nice chemistry as they work together on the case, seeing it through despite threats and attempted bribes.
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This is definitely a case of the cast outperforming the material, as the story is a bit jerky and meandering, and the sheriff's kangaroo court struck me as so cliched it was almost hard to take it seriously -- though, in fairness, perhaps this film helped to create such cliches! That said, I had a very good time indeed watching this film; I'd be hard pressed not to enjoy a film with a cast of this caliber.
THE SELLOUT was directed by Gerald Mayer and shot in black and white by Paul Vogel. It runs 83 minutes.
THE SELLOUT is available on DVD-R from the Warner Archive. The disc includes the trailer.
This movie can also be seen on Turner Classic Movies.
3 Comments:
Thanks for review. This is on my Wants list as I always like to see Audrey Totter. Sorry to hear her part isn't very big.
I might just watch this out of curiosity. Looks like a great cast and I'm really intrigued by the two different male leads and split story. I can only think of one other movie that happens in, The Falcon's Brother (1942) in which George Sanders passes off the role of Falcon to his brother Tom Conway by having his character die mid-story. But I am sure there are more.
Plus Karl Malden <3
Great review Laura!
Vienna, I wondered if there might have been more Audrey scenes which didn't make it into the final movie!
If you like Karl Malden the movie is worth watching, Raquel. It's a nice part, and he has a good amount of screen time. Not a perfect movie but it's interesting, I enjoyed it.
Best wishes,
Laura
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