From Director James Whale

 For the most part, it's a two-character drama. If you're a fan of the classic 1930s work of director James Whale, the visuals of this short drama tell you it's another film from Whale. The expressionistic camera style. The striking play of light, darkness, shadow and lines in the black and white cinematographer. They call to mind images from his groundbreaking classics of the 1930s -- FRANKENSTEIN (1931), THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933) and BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935). This 1949 short feature was the last film directed by James Whale. Just like those three horror movies he made, this non-horror drama features an outcast male figure who is hunted down by a predominantly male group of men. Whale's 1949 short film is HELLO OUT THERE! Based on a one-act play by William Saroyan and produced by millionaire Huntington Hartford, it gives actor Harry Morgan one of his rare film opportunities to have the lead role. He plays a gambler, a man behind bars in a Texas jail, a man "trying to break his bad luck." He's an intense, lonesome character who reveals "I've been lonesome all my life."

The story opens with the gambler yelling the title of the film. He's alone. A voice answers him. That voice comes from Ethel, the jail cook. She comes to the cell and tells him that he was knocked out and jailed. "They claim you tried to attack a woman," she tells him. His anger flares up and he tells her he never attacked a woman, They emotionally connect. Her loveliness, innocence and compassion touch his heart. He wishes they could run away together to San Francisco. He urges her not to stay in that small Texas town and settle into its conformity.

This was not a big budget production but it made good use of every penny in the budget it did have. It's a visually handsome production. Reportedly, it was shot in Hollywood at the KTTV television studios. Those were the Channel 11 call letters. It's now FOX 11 Los Angeles. Morgan bellows most of his dialogue as if he's onstage. However, this vehicle did come from a one-act play. He can be forgiven on that point because he gives a solid performance in a rare lead role. On television, he went on to a lead role as Pete in the early 1960s sitcom, PETE AND GLADYS. That sitcom followed his supporting role as a cop on the very popular DRAGNET. Years later came M*A*S*H* which really made Morgan a beloved TV sitcom actor. 

With his Everyman face and low, warm and recognizable voice, Harry Morgan was an excellent supporting actor in fine films such as STATE FAIR (1945), FROM THIS DAY FORWARD with Joan Fontaine, THE OX-BOW INCIDENT with Henry Fonda, HIGH NOON, THE GLENN MILLER STORY with James Stewart and INHERIT THE WIND with Spencer Tracy and Fredric March. James Whale put Morgan in the top role and you wish the actor had been given a similar opportunity in other films of the 1940s.

His 1930s horror classics made James Whale famous. However, he did work outside that genre keeping some of his classic monster movie sensibilities. To me, his 1936 adaptation of SHOW BOAT, based on the famous Broadway musical, is better than the deluxe 1951 remake from MGM. The racism and racial inequality that are a forceful undercurrent in the SHOW BOAT story are diluted somewhat in the MGM remake. It is unavoidable in Whale's version which stars Irene Dunne, Paul Robeson and Hattie McDaniel. Under Whale's direction, racism against Black people is the monster.

Whale, who died in 1957, was the openly gay film director portrayed by Ian McKellen in the 1998 biopic, GODS AND MONSTERS. The title came from a line of dialogue in Whale's BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. 

1949's HELLO OUT THERE! is like one of those moving, meaningful episodes of Rod Serling's THE TWILIGHT ZONE that folks saw in the early 60s. The half-hour short film, the last work of director James Whale, is worth a look.

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