James Mason

Directed by Carol Reed and presented by the legendary J. Arthur Rank, Odd Man Out is one of the pinnacle achievements in post-war British cinema.

Max Ophüls’ third feature in America, “Caught,” from 1949, is an evocative amalgam of a domesticated melodramatic tragedy and a dynamic film noir sensibility.

It’s both perfectly fitting and a darkly wry punchline that the last word in Stanley Kubrick’s last film is “fuck,” utilized in its most literal definition. The word is spoken, in both direct and slightly imploring fashion, by Alice Harford (Nicole Kidman) to her husband Bill (Tom Cruise) at the end of the still slightly …