The Lawless [The Dividing Line] **** (1950, Macdonald Carey, Gail Russell, Johnny Sands) – Classic Movie Review 5845

Director Joseph Losey spins a strong, intriguing story, and keeps his 1950 film noir drama The Lawless neat, sprightly and buoyant with very solid performances, particularly Macdonald Carey, who is rarely as inspired like this.

Carey plays Larry Wilder, an upstanding American big-city newspaper reporter who starts a new life as a newspaper editor in a Californian small agricultural town, and tries to sort out the situation when racism rears its ugly head among fruit-pickers in California, moving from a stance of impartiality to supporting the Mexican immigrant pickers.

However, despite the right-on subject matter, the movie is not always totally gripping and involving and consequently does not fully succeed. Nevertheless, it is a very film with a very good heart, though, and one that has worn well.

The thoughtful screenplay is by the author of the original source short story The Voice of Stephen Wilder, Daniel Mainwaring, writing under his regular pseudonym of Geoffrey Homes.

Also in the cast are Gail Russell as Sunny Garcia, Johnny [John] Sands as Joe Ferguson, Lee Patrick as Jan Dawson, John Hoyt as Ed Ferguson, Lalo Rios as Paul Rodriguez, Walter Reed as Jim Wilson, Herbert Anderson [Guy Anderson] as Jonas Creel, Argentina Brunetti as Mrs Rodriguez, William Edmunds as Angie Jensen, Gloria Winters as Mildred Jensen, Martha Hyer as Caroline Tyler, Frank Fenton as Mr Prentiss, Paul Harvey as Chief of Police Blake, Maurice Jara as Lopo Chavez, John Davis as Harry Prowling, and Tab Hunter in his film debut as Frank O’Brien.

Losey recalls: ‘One of the things that makes me very close to Dan Mainwaring is his experience of Americana, the nostalgia of the good things about small towns. I remember the smell of burning leaves at night in the autumn too, the smell of Christmas, the sparkle in the air at football games, and the sound of distant trains. And Dan remembers them all. He’s a much underrated writer and a really quite noble man.’

The Lawless [aka The Dividing Line] is directed by Joseph Losey, runs 82 minutes, is made by Pine-Thomas Productions, is released by Paramount, is written by Daniel Mainwaring [Geoffrey Homes], based on his short story The Voice of Stephen Wilder, is shot in black and white by J Roy Hunt, is produced by William H Pine and William C Thomas and is scored by Mahlon Merrick.

Producers William ‘Bill’ H Pine and William ‘Bill’ C Thomas were known as the Dollar Bills because none of their economically made films lost money. Their motto: ‘We don’t want to make million dollar pictures. We just want to make a million dollars.’ This time, though, they wanted to make a more ‘significant’ kind of film. 

The Lawless is an example of film gris, a film noir with leftist themes, which was risky in the oppressive, commie-bashing climate of America in 1950. It was not long till Losey was fleeing to Britain for safety.

The film is also known as Outrage and was released in the UK as The Dividing Line. Shooting took only 18 days and it was released in the US on 1 June 1950. Russell got off her suspension by Paramount to make the film.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5845

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