I don’t know much about Richard Basehart except for a recurring gag on Mystery Science Theatre 3000 where Gypsy, one of the bots, is obsessed with him. Not sure why she’s obsessed with this actor, only that I was reminded of this while watching him in 1950’s Outside the Wall.
Basehart is a man who has been in prison since he was fourteen. A real Philadelphia prison is used for the scenes on the inside, and it looks great on film. There are also scenes on actual city streets once he is paroled, and that footage also serves the movie well.
Filming in the real world emphasizes the anxiety Basehart feels as he tries to adjust to a world completely unfamiliar to him. He finds himself accidentally crossing the street against the signal. Walking by a lot where kids are playing baseball, he catches a fly ball, only to get an earful from the pitcher. He goes to a bar and orders a bottle of pop, which cracks up the bartender. A street-smart woman plies Basehart with alcohol, then tries to pickpocket him when he appears to have passed out. Probably not the best idea to try that on an ex-con.
He at least manages to find employment at a diner owned by a kind man who is surprisingly played by Joe Besser, everybody’s least favorite Stooge. And he proves to be especially useful when he intervenes in an attempted robbery against the place. The experience convinces him to keep moving further away from the city, to try to get away from crime completely. I sincerely wished him luck with that endeavor. I’m pretty sure death is the only way to completely escape such trouble.
It sure seems like trouble is drawn to Basehart like he’s a magnet. As soon as he wanders into the next small town, he sees a newspaper headline about an armored car robbery. The lead suspect in that heist is an ex-con. Alarming to him, the name of that suspect has been withheld, so he is worried the police might be looking for him for a crime he didn’t commit.
Better news is found in the want-ads, and he answers an offer to be a lab assistant at the local sanitarium. Fortunately for him, the institute is on the up-and-up. It isn’t like he leaps from the frying pan of prison and into the fire of the institute from A Cure for Wellness.
I like Harry Antrim as Basehart’s boss. He describes the job as being a “nurse-aid to guinea pigs”. He rattles off all the downsides of the job, especially the low pay, and asks if he needs this opportunity that badly. Later, Antrim will express confusion as to why his employee has stuck with the job. He jokingly says he has tried everything he can think of to make Basehart leave.
I’d say one incentive for his subordinate to stay on is the nurses. There are at least who are attracted to him. Dorothy Hart is the nicer of the two. For some reason, he seems to be more interested in Marilyn Maxwell, who is superficially pleasant enough to Basehart, though she is really a scheming golddigger. What struck me as especially odd is he notices her only after she expresses such intentions.
Unfortunately for Basehart, being in prison since he was in his early teens has him unused to interacting with women. Some of his attempted banter with the nurses is downright creepy. He is initially hostile to Maxwell, suggesting he should bust her nose. He says this playfully, as if there is any way such a line could be delivered in that manner. Even creepier, he grumbles as she walks away, “I wonder what she would do if I did bust her in the nose…”
The plot really kicks into gear when John Hoyt, a guy Basehart knew on the inside, is brought to the hospital under an alias. Remember that newspaper headline our protagonist saw on the way into town? Care to hazard a guess as to what the large bag Hoyt has with him is full of?
Basehart sees an opportunity to steal that money, so as to win over Maxwell. Hoyt wants to keep that loot and ensure his protection from the police and others, and so forces Basehart to cooperate. If he doesn’t, Hoyt will claim Basehart was his accomplice in the robbery.
Hoyt has no shortage of people who want to eliminate him. It is always strange to see future M*A*S*H star Harry Morgan as a heavy, but he is surprisingly ruthless as the head of a gang that is after the money. Morgan is especially fond of torturing people by putting various sharp objects under their fingernails.
Even scarier is Hoyt’s wife, played by Signe Hasso. When Hoyt sends Basehart to see her, he is very insistent he not tell her he’s sick. I assumed the intention was to not worry her. Instead, it is more to not show weakness, which will encourage her to expedite his demise.
Outside the Wall is an average noir, though with some touches which distinguish it from its peers. Like many other films, I almost would have preferred to see a movie about some of the supporting characters, instead. Basehart is just OK, and I wonder if he is better in other movies I have yet to see. I know I didn’t see anything here that I thought warranted Gypsy’s obsession with the man.
Dir: Crane Wilbur
Starring Richard Basehart, Dorothy Hart, Marilyn Maxwell
Watched as part of Kino Lorber’s blu-ray box set Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XII