Most of the movies later labeled as film noirs were made simply to fill the second slot of a double bill. They were made on the cheap and were expected to deliver a moderate amount of satisfaction, at best.
Outside The Law may be the most average noir I have seen so far. It is neither good nor bad. It is neither incompetently made nor is there anything noteworthy about any of the technical aspects. The plot is noir boilerplate.
Also, there wasn’t a single person I recognized—not even the bit-part players I’m to seeing this kind of fare. The kinds of actors where you go, “Oh hey! There’s, uh, what’s-their-name. You know…from that movie.” This made the viewing experience is more oddly generic.
Noir is almost centered around a type of crime, and this is no exception. This time, the plot concerns a currency counterfeiting ring. These are the best forgeries Treasury officials have ever seen. So much effort went into them that they cost more money to print than the actual value of the currency! OK, so I made that last part up.
The protagonist in this picture is a GI who will be returned to San Quentin once his tour of duty is over. Wait a minute—did they ever let prisoners serve in the military, even in wartime? Even better, his dad is the warden, so his own father put him in prison. Let this be a listen to you: don’t skimp on that Father’s Day gift.
That last paragraph makes Outside The Law sound weirder than it is, but all that happens in roughly five minutes of screentime. Really, the banality of the rest of the picture would have wiped this scene from my memory if I hadn’t been taking notes. While not a bad film, it is solidly mediocre, occupying 90 minutes of my life without enriching it at all. I doubt I will remember having seen it by this time next week.
Dir: Jack Arnold
Starring nobody I recognize nor expect to see in any other movies
Watched on Kino Lorber’s blu-ray set Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema V