Some titles tell you right up front the kind of movie you're about to watch. Gunfight at Comanche Creek (1963), for instance, could only be a Western, and Desire Me (1947) is bound to be one of those melodramas aimed squarely at female audiences. A movie released in 1952 called The Sellout, then, is almost guaranteed to be a film noir, and if it doesn't star Robert Mitchum or Robert Ryan, you can bet it will have at least a few familiar noir faces.

This is, in fact, one of those movies about corruption, extortion, crusading newspapermen, rough thugs, and shady nightclub "chantooses" that falls under the broad umbrella of noir. Neither Mitchum nor Ryan are in it, this being not one of the great examples of the style (witness its release date: dumped right after the holiday season in early January 1952), but it does have some of the players we've come to expect. First and foremost is that sloe-eyed, hard-as-nails noir fixture Audrey Totter, one of the best of the period's bad girls. A fascinating presence and much better actress than her longtime "B" status would indicate, Totter appeared in more than half a dozen films that roughly fall under the noir banner, among them The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), Lady in the Lake (1947), and The Set-Up (1949), which did star Robert Ryan.

Others in the cast with recognizable faces but perhaps less familiar names are Thomas Gomez (Force of Evil, 1948; The Woman on Pier 13, 1949, with Ryan again), Whit Bissell (Raw Deal, 1948; He Walked by Night, 1948), and Everett Sloane (The Lady from Shanghai, 1947; The Enforcer, 1951).

The biggest name in the cast at this point in time was star-billed Walter Pidgeon, a longtime MGM contract player making the transition from Greer Garson's most frequent leading man (seven pictures between 1941 and 1950, with one more to follow the year after this) to the distinguished older gentleman of The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Executive Suite (1954), and the Prospero-like character of Forbidden Planet (1956). Pidgeon plays the big-city newspaper editor set on bringing down a corrupt small-town sheriff (Gomez) who holds power over his entire community. When Pidgeon suddenly gives up his crusade (the sellout of the title), it's up to state's attorney Chick Johnson (John Hodiak) to uncover the depth of the shady dealings and set things straight. Did we mention Totter plays a nightclub "chantoose" who ends up on the wrong side of just about everybody?

The plot line, while distinctly contemporary to its time, also recalls a Western theme, a fact the New York Times review was quick to notice: "There is no reason why this picture cannot be called an 'Eastern.' We have a long tradition of 'Westerns' in which black-hearted cowboy villains, abetted by slick, well-dressed lawyers, are opposed by a clean-cut, chisel-jawed state or Federal Marshal who in turn is aided by a 'courageous journalist.' He uses his press to battle the elements of disorder and mischief, and you know who always wins. That is a standard Western, but an Eastern is slightly different. Instead of horses, the principals use late model autos, no wide brim Stetsons but snap brim soft hats, long barreled .44's are replaced by snub-nosed .38's to inter the squealer and incarcerate the crooks. Acting in a low level Eastern is identical with its brother in the West." The film's working title, "County Line," might have been an appropriate one for a true Western or, had this been made a few decades later, one of those movies where innocent young people cross into a nightmare rural world of murderous redneck sheriffs.

One of the good guys in this scenario is played by Karl Malden, just a couple of months shy, when this picture was released, of receiving his Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). That movie would do much more for his career than The Sellout, although his role here as an honest cop would prepare him well for a character that, despite his many great screen performances, is probably his most recognizable to audiences, Detective Lt. Mike Stone of the 1970s television series The Streets of San Francisco. Malden was no slouch at film noir roles himself, having appeared in Boomerang! (1947), Kiss of Death (1947), and Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950).

According to a Hollywood Reporter story, Robert Walker was set to co-star in The Sellout, but he died tragically at the age of 32 from drug and alcohol use, and his role was taken by John Hodiak. Walker's last film, the anti-communist melodrama My Son John (1952), was released just a few months after The Sellout, a delay caused by rewrites and re-shoots after he died before production completed.

The director of The Sellout is Gerald Mayer, doing little to distinguish himself beyond his status as nephew of MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer. The bulk of young Mayer's career would be mostly spent in television, where he directed many episodes of both Western and crime shows, as well as several other genres.

Director: Gerald Mayer
Producer: Nicholas Nayfack
Screenplay: Charles Palmer, story by Matthew Rapf
Cinematography: Paul Vogel
Editing: George White
Art Direction: Cedric Gibbons, Arthur Lonergan
Original Music: David Buttolph
Cast: Walter Pidgeon (Haven D. Allridge), John Hodiak (Charles "Chick" Johnson), Audrey Totter (Cleo Bethel), Paula Raymond (Peggy Stauton), Thomas Gomez (Sheriff Burke), Karl Malden (Capt. Buck Maxwell).
BW-83m. Closed Captioning.

by Rob Nixon