vincentlynch-moonoi I disagree with the general trend of reviews for this film. I think it's a very strong film. However, it has the feel of a small film...but I think that's what was required here because it's a film about a very small town. Small town -- small film. That's a match.At first glance, it looks as if the plot is going to be pretty simple. Newspaper editor is arrested in a small hick town on false charges and will lead a crusade to clean up the town. Until he uncharacteristically steps back and decides to leave his town completely. Huh? Walter Pidgeon running away? Fortunately, someone takes up the crusade -- but not Pidgeon's son-in-law, a county prosecutor. Hmmmm. A family that has high ideals until they're put to the test? But someone has to lead the charge. So that falls to John Hodiak, a state prosecutor. And he faces a brick wall because everyone is afraid to testify against the small town thugs.Will the newspaper editor testify? And if not, why not? Today's audiences may not believe that there were places like this back before the 1960s. People did sometimes virtually disappear.Walter Pidgeon is quite good here as the newspaper editor; I wonder how he liked a film where for at least part of the time he appeared to be a coward. John Hodiak is very good as the state attorney. Thomas Gomez is good...and disgusting...as the crooked sheriff. Karl Malden is good as an honest cop.I don't find a lot here to criticize. The ending gets -- as a couple have already said -- a little preachy and too idealistic. And, I think they could have made more earlier in the film about the dilemma facing Walter Pidgeon.I liked it and recommend it.

LeonLouisRicci MGM Decided late in the Game to start Producing these Types of Street-Level, Contemporary, Crime and Corruption Movies that RKO and WB had been doing quite Effectively for Years. But as was Almost Always the Case, They just didn't have it, in both Style and Tone.This One is not Pure Film-Noir but does have some of the Elements. The Jail Room and Hideout Scenes are the Best. The Actors do give it some Noir Feel, more than most of the Set-Ups and there is Enough Sleaziness to give the Film Gravitas.The Final Act Courtroom Scenes pretty much put an End to the Edginess, Concluding with a Straight Forward and Preachy Blandness. Overall worth a View for the Better Parts but Pales in Comparison to the more Hard-Boiled, Gritty Stuff that was Around at the Time.

sol **SPOILERS**A bit over-plotted film about political corruption involving the overstuffed, in his stomach as well as ego, and arrogant Ridgewood Country Sheriff Kellwin C. Burke, Thomas Gomaz, who feels that his word is law in the county.It's when Sheriff Burke tries to put the squeeze on the Daily Intelligencer Newspaper's editor the highly respected and ethical Haven D. Allridge, Walter Pidgon, that he finally took on more then he could swallow. It's when Allridge and his friend, whom he was giving a lift home, Wilfred Johnson, Whit Bissell, were arrested by Burke on trumped up charges-in Allridge not having his drivers license on him-that Burke and his stooges got more then they bargained for.Exposing Burke's corrupt activities in Ridgewood County on the front pages of his newspaper Allridge had Burke & Co. start to play rough with him. Burke had one of the trucks delivering Allridge's paper run off the highway and its driver killed. It was then that both local Ridgewood County police Captain Buck Maxwell, Karl Malden, and Federal Prosecutor Charles "Chick" Johnson, John Hodiak, got on the case. Just when everything was going fine in getting Burke indited on a slew of Federal and local violations of the law, including murder and intimidating witnesses, that all the 55 persons who were willing to testify against him suddenly lost their memories! One of those witnesses included that right and honest as well as crusading editor of the Daily Intelligencer Haven D. Allridge!***SPOILER ALERT*** It's very obvious that Burke and his men got to Alldrige after setting a trap for him and working him over at the Amboy Bar and Grill Nightclub. But the real reason for Allridge turning yellow and attempting to leave town, to Detroit no less, was far more shocking then just a few lumps on his head! It was something very very close to home that if brought out would destroy not only himself, in Allridge not being able to do his job affectively, but his daughter Peggy, Paua Raymond, and her husband Ridgewood County prosecutor Randy Stauton, Cameron Mitchell!The film "The Sellout" shows how political corruption effects all of those that are surrounded by it even if they have to guts, like Haven Allridge, to stand up and fight against it. There's always something that the people of Ridgewood County have hidden in their closet, involving friends and relatives, that if exposed will bring the roof down on their heads. This is what kept Burke in power all these years in knowing these secrets, that in many cases he was involved in, and using them against men like Allridge who dared to stand up to him. It was in the end courageous men like Chick Johnson and Capt. Buck Maxwell who were immune for Burke's blackmailing tactic who finally brought him and his gang of murderous cut throats to the bar of justice.

bkoganbing The Sellout is a good B picture crime drama out of MGM using a solid heaping helping of their B picture contract players.Newspaper editor Walter Pigeon and a friend Whit Bissell get caught up in a speedtrap in the rural part of the county they reside in. Given the Code was in place in 1951, I'm sure they would have been brutalized far more graphically in the jail of Thomas Gomez the corrupt sheriff of the county. Still and all it's enough to fill Pigeon with a firm resolve to get Gomez. Even without the help of local prosecutor Cameron Mitchell who is Pigeon's son-in-law.But a crusading special prosecutor from the State Attorney General and an honest city cop played by John Hodiak and Karl Malden respectively get into the picture due to Pigeon's hard hitting articles. There's far more than a speedtrap involved. Then Pigeon's ardor suddenly cools.I think that anyone who's seen a lot of movies can figure the ending out from here. But these are a good group of some of the best players around. One other reviewer mentioned that Audrey Totter's role as a woman of easy virtue is left up in the air. I would guess the editors had more to do with it than anything else.Thomas Gomez delivers the best performance in the film. He's a viciously evil man and he drives his corrupt lawyer Everett Sloane crazy. Sloane tries very hard to fix things without violence or crudity. But Gomez just can't be controlled.It's a good film, very much like The Phoenix City Story that would come along a few years later.