Alternate Best Actor 1947: James Mason in Odd Man Out

James Mason did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Johnny McQueen in Odd Man Out. 

Odd Man Out is Carol Reed's other masterpiece, that receives a bit less recognition in general, about an IRA operative on the run after a failed robbery.

Now that description in short doesn't speak the brilliance of the film. The brilliance being that it isn't *just* about the IRA soldier on the run, but rather the way this event seems to influence the entire city around him. Due to this complex perspective however James Mason here probably is one of the least leading leads around. By that alliteration I mean that James Mason doesn't have a great deal of screentime despite his Johnny McQueen most certainly being the core of the film. Now that is perhaps why I placed him originally too low in my original ranking for 47 (although it might've also been me taking less care to those past #1, since no one was every going to take Attenborough's place when he was in 47), but that is entirely unfair to Mason's performance. This as every minute Mason is onscreen, he makes it count. Now in the opening of the film we initially meet McQueen as he's hiding out in a home, preparing for the robbery with his men. McQueen having spent months within the home after having escape prison for previous IRA action. This seems a small scene, but it is essential for Mason's performance, and again he doesn't waste it. This as he creates the essentials of the man in a few ways. One as we see him initially prepping Mason delivers a calm and cool charisma to Johnny. Although Mason was better known for his cold villains at the time, Mason shows a definite range here in creating an innate likability within this moment. This as Johnny speaks to the man with a reserve, but also a sense of understanding as a once proper leader of the men. 

After prepping his men, he's left with his right hand man, and one of the women who had been hiding him, Kathleen (Kathleen Ryan), who clearly bares greater affection for Johnny. His talk with the right hand man, who asks for him to go on the job instead due to Johnny's time inside, Mason's reaction is effective in revealing less charisma and more exasperation in the moment. He speaks with a reserved false indifference to the statement, ensuring him he's fine just as Mason's face reflects the wear the man has received. Still Johnny chooses to go but before has a scene with Kathleen, who actually never state themselves as lovers or the like, but as they are together we are granted this sense. This speaks to the performances of both Ryan and Mason, this as there is just a strong sense of the attraction and warmth within the moment. They speak even not in a directly personal way, rather she just cautions Johnny on the plan, but within the interaction every still is said within their performances. There is a striking sense of the love between them. We won't see them again together until the end of the film, so this scene actually is more important than it might seem. Within it though you are granted in total a real sense of the connection between the two and it is through the natural strength of both Mason and Ryan's performances. Their eyes match and grant a sense of so much of a relationship constrained within circumstance, but still thriving within the two's hearts. 

The actual robbery we see as Johnny approaches and in that Mason's physical work, which is a primary virtue of this performance is even evident before his inevitable injury. This as they walk into the location, Mason carries himself with an uncertainty in his step and awkwardness in his manner as even go by bystanders seems a slightly odd thing to him. The robbery falling apart as Johnny tries to make his escape and becomes disoriented slowing him down enough for a clerk to attack him. This fight that leaves the other man dead, and Johnny shot, Mason portrays as just a broken moment of messy desperation near accident. This to the point when he is then making his escape in their getaway, Mason's distress is potent as he keeps asking if the man he shot is dead or not. This granting a sense of real concern and shame in Johnny, and really the beginning of the end for the man. This as Johnny falls from the car window in the escape, and runs off finding solace in some abandoned structure. While the city searches for him including cops, Johnny's men, Kathleen and some random opportunists, Johnny lays in the building just slowly suffering from his wound. Mason's performance of Johnny's physical decay is remarkable, as we see each step, here in the stinging pain as he lies alone. There is a wonderful moment as Johnny is barely conscious and imagines a local girl as a guard from his prison days. Mason's performance is amazing in his wistful delivery of the past day as some foggy dream. Mason's eyes expressing a man seemingly escaping, by returning to prison of all things, though crafting a state of brief contentment before finding reality again. 

Mason's performance then for a good chunk of the film is nearly silent, having brief moments of just trying to wave people from him or asking for help, however that doesn't at all dull the impact of his performance. This as Mason's face is so powerful in this film. Take a moment as Johnny is still stuck in the place as he watches two lovers hiding in his place seemingly for tryst though the woman relents. Mason's expression captures certainly the tension in Johnny as he expresses concern of being found out, but there is so much more. There is a sadness as he looks upon the couple that seems to suggest the man pitying his circumstances as his life and love is filled with so much more complication and anguish. As we see Johnny wandering around the city, finding random help here and there. Mason's performance captures such a potent growing desperation in every regard. This as his physical manner becomes all the more distressed and labored, and his eyes evoke a man going through more than just physical pain. This as he finds a brief solace in a bar, that doesn't want to come afoul of either the cops or the IRA, Johnny sees his life in beer stains. Mason's performance again finds such a potent sense of anxiety as he realizes the sense of the man seeing how everything has spiraled out for him, this before earning his visceral scream that is built out of more than the nearly festering wound within him. Mason showing a man burdened wholly through his life to this life, and creating this man who seemingly has never stopped being a prisoner despite having escaped from one kind of prison. 

 

Eventually a group of strange men, including a deranged artist and a quirky bird keeper, take him away to repair him slightly through the use of a doctor of sorts, however all the men aren't entirely motivated to help Johnny. Mason meanwhile shows Johnny barely conscious within the affair and nearly dying it seems as his performance becomes shows the life of the man growing ever fainter. This until he's spoken to about his old priest, who wants to see Johnny now to help him, and Johnny has a vision of the old pastor. Mason is downright amazing in this moment, and is one of the best of his illustrious career. This as we see in his eyes, despite staring at a hallucination, Johnny finding some clarity and sense rather than just pain. Mason's expression shows a man reaching some understanding suddenly of the moral betrayals in his life that have left him to this point. This culminating in Mason's awe inspiring delivery of Psalm 23 as recognition of the lessons of the priest he ignored. Mason's work here is outstanding as burdens each word with such potent emotion and meaning. Mason says it with such intensity of feeling and creates a moment of true revelation. Mason makes it this moment of true catharsis as the guilt and anxiety that seemed to weigh so heavily in the psalm, as almost this incredible act of repentance. Johnny is brought along supposedly to see the priest, as he is walked along by the bird keeper. Mason's physical work now is that of a basically a dead man walking. His expression like  a ghost somehow just barely maintaining a moral coil and his movements now of a man just forcing himself to move while his body is actively dying. This as he doesn't meet the priest, and instead finds Kathleen, who is adamant that Johnny not be taken in. We have an extraordinary moment, where we find that chemistry again, now so poignant as Mason shows with all the pain just the hint of true warmth and solace as Kathleen speaks of an escape that isn't far. This is a truly great performance by James Mason. He doesn't have a great deal screentime, however there isn't a moment where you forget his presence. He is a constant, in that he never wastes a moment, whether silent or speaking. This in granting us the sense of Johnny's journey both physically, mentally and emotionally. This in creating such a heartbreaking and tragic portrait of man slowly escaping his life.