User Reviews

In the Hollywood of late '40s and early '50s, Richard Basehart found plenty of work in the noir cycle but never made a major mark, the mark of a Robert Mitchum or Glenn Ford or even a Dick Powell. His good looks were all-American bland - lackluster - and his acting rarely leapt to dangerous voltages. Probably more at home on stage than on the pitiless screen, he leaves one of his fullest performances in a shunted-aside noir, Outside The Wall.

Just 30 but with 15 years in stir behind him (he'd caused the death of an abusive guard when he was just a kid in reform school), he secures an unexpected release from prison. An old lifer grumbles about life outside: `Everybody's got the jitters. A buck ain't worth a buck anymore.' But mo st of all he warns about the `dames,' of whom Basehart knows absolutely nothing. He'll soon find out.

In his first night in Philadelphia, a B-girl feeds him his first taste of liquor and tries to filch his wallet; later, washing dishes, he foils a stickup and, fed up with Brotherly Love, heads for the clean country of Jewel Lake, landing a job as a lab technician at a TB sanitarium. His first patient (John Hoyt) turns out to be an ex-con he knows who's just pulled a fatal armored-car robbery. When Basehart fails to blow the whistle, the dying Hoyt trusts him enough to mule payoff money to his avaricious wife (Signe Hasso).

The straight-arrow Basehart normally wouldn't dirty his hands, but the blonde and mercenary charms of nurse Marilyn Maxwell lead him to rethink his monkish life (`I just found out what money can buy,' he tells her, forking over a platinum bracelet in his new roadster). Still, his stirring conscience beckons him to fess up about his past to good-gal Dorothy Hart. But Hoyt has the means to hold him to his bargain, while his wife and her ruthless accomplices have their own plans for him....

Crane Wilbur, who started way back in the silent era, wrote several noirs and directed a few of them, mostly about prison life (Canon City, The Story of Molly X). Here, he directs his story with some nicely observed vignettes about the dislocation awaiting released felons but, as it advances, less than persuasive plotting. But, in addition to the convincing work he coaxes from Basehart, he assembles a solid cast, with Maxwell and Hasso rivaling one another in duplicity and Hart more appealing than the saintly simp she might have been.

Harry Morgan also appears, as a thug who elicits information by sliding scalpels under fingernails. Interestingly a veteran of even more noirs than Basehart, Morgan played the heavy the year before, too, in Red Light, but couldn't hold a candle to his partner in crime, Raymond Burr. Here, he takes his place amid a balanced cast with intersecting motives that result in a movie that, while satisfying, falls well short of spectacular. Still, it merits more viewers.

OUTSIDE THE WALL is a solid B crime movie that delivers everything the genre promises. It might make a nice comparison with TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY, released the next year. In both films, an ex-con, newly released, runs into trouble despite their pretty naive aspirations and innocuous personalities.

Probably the main distinguishing characteristic of OUTSIDE THE WALL is the use of Philadelphia locations. It's always fascinating to see a large city back in the middle of the last century. We are usually shown L. A. or N. Y., the Pennsylvania metropolis makes a welcome change.

At the top of the cast list is Richard Basehart. Pretty much an asset in any film, Basehart carries the lead perfectly. His boyish good looks serve the character, a still-young man who never had a chance to experience the world before he was thrown into prison. When he's let out, Basehart meets a stream of women, most of them unworthy of his attentions. Marliyn Maxwell is also well-cast as a brittle, materialistic nurse whom Basehart encounters in his first legitimate job. Her influence leads him to rejoin the criminal life, and plenty of trouble ensues. Among the rest of the cast are Noir favorites, Joseph Pevney, the incredibly prolific John Hoyt and Harry Morgan (who here plays a crime boss with gusto), . Dolores Hart plays Basehart's possible love interest, while Signe Hasso is almost wasted as a money-hungry gangster's wife.

Larry Nelson (Richard Basehart) is a 29 year old convict who wins his plea for a pardon. But "outside the wall" freedom is initially not so sweet. He was in a reform school at 14 - he describes himself as an incorrigible hood at that age - and when a guard who dislikes him hits him, he hits him back, the guard falls and dies, and Larry is convicted of murder but given life in prison instead of death because of his young age. So he is free with 672 dollars he has earned over the course of his imprisonment (that would be about 12 thousand dollars now), but he has never been on a date, never taken a drink, never driven a car or learned how, never applied for a real job. After a couple of days of bad experiences in the city, he hits the road and "tramps it" to a small town and gets a job as a lab assistant in a hospital for TB patients, hoping just to keep his head down and stay out of trouble. On the way to the small town, he reads about a one million dollar robbery in which three of the robbers were killed and three armored car guards were killed. Two robbers escaped.

And then one of the robbers shows up at the rest home with a bad case of TB. Larry recognizes him from his time in prison, but true to the prison code, tells him he will not rat him out. The robber asks him to help him get some of the robbery loot to his wife in Philadelphia. Larry refuses to help. At first. But then he starts pining for a nurse who is money hungry bad news, and he thinks that some of the robber's money will win her affection, so he agrees to help the ailing robber. Complications ensue.

I would normally be annoyed by somebody who makes the obviously bad and even stupid choices that Larry Nelson makes in this film, figuring that any intelligent 30 year old should know better than to trust such a greedy woman as the nurse he lusts after or the murderous robber who wants his help. But then, Larry Nelson experientially is 14, not 30. Thus he makes the mistakes that any 14 year old would make in the same situation. But he learns fast.

This was really a great part for Basehart. I believe him as the hardened con and I believe him as the naive teenager in a 30 year old body. If you want to see Basehart in another film where he practically has a dual role, watch "Tension". But by all means do see this, as it has suspense, noirish undertones, and a great performance by Basehart.

The premise of a convict trying for a fresh start isn't a new one, but I liked the unique characterization or Richard Basehart in Outside the Wall. He plays a young man who's spent more than half his life in prison. While he was a fourteen-year-old in reform school, he beat up a guard (who later died) and was sentenced to murder. After fifteen years, he receives a pardon and is completely unprepared for the outside world. Think about it: the last time he saw the outside, he was a little boy. He's never driven a car, worked at a job, gone on a date, paid bills, or lived on his own. Thrust out into a new world, he gets a job working in a sanitarium and quickly falls for the first blonde who turns his head, Marilyn Maxwell. Dorothy Hart is the brunette nurse with a heart of gold, in contrast to Marilyn's obvious gold digging schemes. Will the innocent protagonist see through her, or will he have to grow up the hard way?

This old movie doesn't feel like it was made in 1950; it feels like it was made in the early 1930s. Everything about it is old-fashioned, from the good girl and bad girl contrast, to the simple filmmaking techniques, to the type of turns the plot takes. I kept expecting Chester Morris to show up with Carole Lombard, Kay Francis, and Shirley Temple. If you like old movies, and especially ex-con movies, try this one out.

From acne ridden adolescent, to hardened thirty year old, Richard Basehart has known only reform school and prison. He is a world leader on the workings of the criminal mind and on survival in the most iniquitous of company. He is also an abject novice on coping with an ever changing modern society, characterized by high rise buildings, fast cars, noisy, bustling city streets and rapidly advancing automation. Utterly naive about girls and alcohol. RESULT: Overpowering two armed robbers? - Piece of cake. Crossing the road?.......Nightmare!

Despite brittle, awkward social skills, Basehart puts his best foot forward, landing a steady, responsible job at a sanatorium and with some cheery colleagues there is genuine cause for optimism, until he falls foul of feeble, fast fading felon, John Hoyt, wheeled in as a patient. Suddenly, Basehart is teetering on the brink. Facing a dilemma. The lure of big, but dirty money and with a high maintenance girlfriend in tow, will the temptation prove too great?

On one level, this is just a neat little crime flick, about a man who has served his time, is eager to go straight, but finds himself compromised as much by the corruption of the outside world, as by demons from his past.

Alternatively it stands as a stark polemic on a woefully inadequate, not fit for purpose system, failing miserably to support ex-criminals as they desperately seek to adjust and find fulfillment in life, outside the wall.

Richard Basehart went into Cherry Hill Prison when he was 14. Now he's 29, and has just been pardoned. The world has grown noisy and strange, but he just wants to keep his head down, so he winds up in a small town working for almost nothing at a hospital that specializes in lungers. He vaguely hopes to get a girl friend, but doesn't know anything about women, so when nurse Marilyn Maxwell turns him down because she's looking for a rich man, he agrees to help armored-car robber Joseph Pevney get some money to his ex-wife in return for a bankroll. He impresses Miss Maxwell with the money, but the wife's mob wants all of the money from the robbery.

I'm so used to Basehart playing deep-voiced authority figures in the 1960s, that watching him play this young-old fish out of water is startling. Crane Wilbur directs his actors to very simple performances that lead you to think that this is all inevitable, while getting in a subtextual knock at society's unwillingness to accept ex-cons. With Signe Hasso, Dorothy Hart, Lloyd Gough and Harry Morgan.

"Film-Noir" as Newbie Aficionados Find-Out Fast is a Tough Genre to Define, Pigeon-Hole, and Explain.

Whole Books have Attempted the Task and the Ambiguity and Miss-Identifying Remains.

Just Ask Eddie Muller who has Made a Well-Deserved Respected Career as "The Czar-of-Noir and Soldiers-On with His Film-Noir Foundation and Today Still Carries the Torch as Good as Any-Body.

Case in Point..."Outside the Wall", Written and Directed by Crane Wilbur", Little Known Hollywood Citizen, who had a Good Sense for Crackling Dialog.

A Good Cast Peppered with Ingredients the Likes of Richard Basehart with Support by Marilyn Maxwell, who had a Long Career, here in the Role of a Femme-Fatale Bleached-Blonde and is a Tough-as-Polished-Nails Nurse on the Make for Guys, "With Fancy Cars and a Pocket-Full of Miracles...

Dorthy Hart is the "Good-Girl", and Harry Morgan, Once Again Sliding Effortlessly from Cop or Criminal, this Time as a Gang Leader with a Sadistic-Side.

John Hoyt is an Aging TB Patient that Basehart Recognizes from a 15 Year Stint for Manslaughter that is Half His Life, whose Gang just Heisted a Cool-Mil from an Armored Truck and His Ruthless Ex-Wife and the Morgan Gang are Scheming to Steal.

Basehart is Terrific and the Philly Locations are the Digs where Basehart, as Naive as an Untrained Puppy, Navigates and Learns OJT, to Stay One Step Ahead of a Noir World of Bad-Guys, Dishy Blondes Void of Conscience, and the Fast-Growing, often Overwhelming Life Environs.

It's a Neat Little Movie Packaged for the Edgy Fans always on the Look-Out for Hidden-Gems Among the Pile of Rocks we Call Hollywood. While this Might Not Be Considered a "Gem" it is Part of the Better than Average B-Crime-Movies...

that May or May Not be Pure Film-Noir but are an Entertaining Enjoyment Plucked from the Pile that was a Steadily Growing Grist for the Mill of Movies from the Period that are even More than just...

Worth a Watch.

Crane Wilber's OUTSIDE THE WALL is three movies in one, and the first two are the best: starting with Richard Basehart as Larry Nelson, who had been locked-up in prison from age 15 to 30 for having punched a guard, causeding him to fall to his death, told in expository as Basehart... with the right amount of prowess, naivety and vulnerability... is paroled OUTSIDE THE WALL, quickly learning about dangerous traffic and a crooked bar floozy...

And soon he's into the second picture, which has the most potential, featuring bad blonde Marilyn Maxwell as blunt, selfish, shrewd and downright crooked hospital nurse who Basehart's Larry winds up working alongside... although she looks a decade too old, her character has sharp fatale potential, curbed by good girl Dorothy Hart (who just played the crooked dame in UNDERTOW)...

But the entertaining friction between the greedy nurse and polite ex-convict only last a few scenes... when escaped prisoner John Hoyt winds up in the hospital, Larry keeps quiet, and the noir dilemma kicks in since he still thinks like a criminal, which is just the beginning of the true morality test...

Yet the picture derails into a messy post-heist potboiler combined with a rushed wrong-man plot when Larry's mistaken for Hoyt's missing cohort: and a group of seedy criminals (bed by Harry Morgan) turn this unique semi-expose on the temptations of rehabilitation into a dime novel programmer both predictable and cliche: basically, Richard Basehart and Marilyn Maxwell... the latter forgotten by the third act... deserved a much better platform.

Richard Baseheart never competed with such mega stars as Gregory Peck, Humphrey Bogart and John Wayne but kept more to himself concentrating on more complicated roles on a smaller scale, like a kind of understatement actor, but the result is that his roles are always interesting and intriguing. Here he is released from prison after fifteen years at the age of 29 and knows nothing about society. His only schooling in 15 years' imprisonment has been to handle tough guys and ruffians and a thorough knowledge of the criminal type. To get away from the stress and noise of Philadelphia, he heads for the country and finds a small friendly town where nothing ever happens, where he is employed as an assistant at a hospital. So far so good, but it is not. An old fellow gangster turns up in a dying state who has hidden a million away somewhere, and the fellow hoodlums he has fooled are after him, so he is not allowed to die in peace. Unfortunately Richard Baseheart is there, they recognise each other, and the case is cooked. From there on the strain and excitement of the thriller keeps constantly rising like a fever temperature, and a few dames get involved also. This is in many ways the perfect thriller, but Richard Baseheart's acting is what keeps it glowingly alive until it bursts into flames, and the finale is an ingenious climax of the composition.

Richard Basehart in a small film gem from Hollywood's black series

At the beginning of the 1950s, the dark films of the Black Series were slowly going out of fashion, but were still successful enough with audiences that the then mini-major UNIVERSAL PICTURES brought this film by Crane Wilbur to American cinemas.

Larry Nelson (Richard Basehart), around 30 years old, is released from prison. He spent half of his life there. His fellow prisoners warned him especially about the treacherous women. Now he hopes to lead a normal life without getting into trouble with the law again. That's not so easy for an ex-convict. But then it works! He finds a good job, falls in love with a charming colleague (Marilyn Maxwell) and yet has to realize that he has once again ended up in the middle of a gang of criminals...

This thoroughly successful film never made it to German cinemas, but was only broadcast on the German regional broadcaster NDR sometime in the 1980s. Richard Basehart (La Strada / Moby Dick / Jons and Erdme) is convincing as a young prison release who has to fight his way into a law-abiding life. Swedish actress Signe Hasso and Dorothy Hart can also be seen in other roles.

A very average B-Movie from the little-known Crane Wilbur, "Outside the Wall" finds basically innocent, nice guy Richard Basehart getting out of prison after serving 15 years on a murder rap committed when he was 14 and falling into bad company in the form of gold-digging nurse Marilyn Maxwell and ex-con John Hoyt's wife Signe Hasso and her murderous associates, one of whom happens to be Harry Morgan. It's certainly nobody's finest hour, least of all Basehart's, though both Maxwell and Hasso just about redeem themselves and Morgan makes for a surprisingly good villain. Unfortunately the far-fetched plot is wafer thin and Wilbur's direction is poor. One to avoid.

Nelson" (Richard Basehart" is half way through a thirty year prison stretch when he is released on parole. Determined never to go back behind bars, he capitalises on his time at the prison hospital and finds a job at a sanatorium. His eye wanders to the rather venal nurse "Ann" (Dorothy Hart) but there's not really any way he can afford to indulge her. Until, that is, he discovers a patient in the place that he knows of old. 'Jack" (John Hoyt) is another criminal, suffering from TB, who was reputedly mixed up in a million dollar security heist a long time ago. In return for a bit of help with his estranged wife, he is prepared to pay "Nelson" handsomely. That wife "Celia" (Signe Hasso) has grand designs on this cash, and with a gang of unsavoury types led by "Garth" (Henry Morgan) decides to get the loot at all costs. Suddenly, "Nelson" finds his life in danger and he has to think nimbly on his feet if he is to stay alive, at liberty - and hopefully find the cash too. Basehart never was the most charismatic of actors but he does enough here to keep this thriller on it's toes as we build to a quirky denouement that raises the dead for a double-cross (or, maybe not). Standard afternoon fayre, this, but watchable.

The story begins at Eastern State Penitentiary, an ancient prison that was shut down in 1971. It's an interesting place you can tour to this day...something you might want to do if you visit Philadelphia.

As to the story itself, it seems that Larry (Richard Basehart) has been incarcerated since he was only 14. Now, after living about half his life behind bars, he's learned that he's received a pardon and will be released. However, Larry has a really difficult time adjusting to life outside prison and you wonder if he'll soon commit some crime just to get back to the routine he's become so used to experiencing.

Before this cane happen, Larry's job offers him a chance to either get rich or go back to stir. A con he recognizes has been brought in to the hospital where Larry works and the guy apparently was part of some armored car robbery...and he was never caught and the money is still in hiding. Soon 'friends' of this con approach Larry and they want him to join up. Will Larry go the straight and narrow or give it all up for a familiar life of crime?

This movie is exceptional in many ways. The script is intelligent and well constructed. It gives an unusual insight into the plight of ex-cons and their difficulties adjusting to real life. It also is very tense and filled with bad people and a real femme fatale. Basehart is also excellent...and his forte was playing in film noir movies. Overall, a surprisingly good movie...one crime film buffs should really enjoy.

Reviewer clanciai has done such an excellent job reviewing this movie I can add nothing, except that besides all of the other great features of this movie mentioned by C, it's got Harry Morgan (Colonel Potter of M*SH as a really evil character, and John Hoyt (Spartacus and Star Trek, etc.) as another, more complex character.

The film looks great, with tight editing and some nice jump cuts that seemed daring for 1950. Great character development in the cast, and in several places is subverted a cliché with an unexpected outcome. It's a true cliffhanger that kept me guessing until the last frame.

From the information provided by IMDB, I see that Director Crane Wilbur had also developed a talent for screenwriting, hence his OUTSIDE THE WALL screenplay containing credible and interesting dialogue that reflects some sensitivity in considering the feelings and new take on life of an inmate upon regaining freedom.

To that end Wilbur is immensely assisted by Richard Basehart's candid, naturalistic performance, one of the best in his career, as he first comes into contact with women (in jail since 15, at 30 he has spent his entire pubescent life behind bars), alcohol (he had never tasted any such beverages and asks for a soda pop at the bar), and bustling city life.

As tough as it is for any ex-con to find work in civvy street, he does not mind washing dishes but prefers the more secluded duties of an orderly at a sanatorium, where he meets two interesting nurses, one rather materialistic, the other genuinely interested in him, plus a patient (played by the creepy John Hoyst) he knew from jail and who happens to be the sole survivor of a $1 million heist. Of course, a sum like that is bound to attract other criminals, including the fine-featured but sinister Signe Hasso, and her sidekicks (torturer Harry Morgan is particularly memorable).

Very good chiaroscuro cinematography by Irving Glassberg.

Definitely worth watching. 8/10.