the "actual drum of mill machinery and the echo of hoof beats." The narrowness of Johnny's world is represented by scenes shot on location in small rooms and in alleys. Music Composer William Alwyn was involved writing the leitmotif-based film score from the very beginning of the production. It was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Muir Mathieson. Political context and censorship The film did not mention the IRA by name and, like John Ford's The Informer (1935), only "casually touched on the underlying conflict." Both use the backdrop of The Troubles to present morality tales designed to appeal to the broadest possible audience. The IRA was portrayed as little more than a criminal gang. Politics and the cause of Irish nationalism was avoided to "circumvent controversy and pass the censors." With an eye toward distribution of the film in the United States, the film script was submitted to Joseph Breen of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, who advised the producers that the original ending, a murder-suicide, violated the Hollywood Production Code. Years earlier, Breen had similarly submitted the script of The Informer to the British Board of Film Censors, which requested numerous changes to omit references to the Anglo-Irish conflict. Odd Man Out and The Informer are also similar in being "dramatic portrayals of lapsed Catholics rediscovering their lost faith," and "end with their dying protagonists assuming Christ-like poses." Writing in The IRA on Film and Television: A History, author Mark Connelly observes that Johnny is "more of a mob boss than revolutionary," and that the F.L. Green novel upon which the film was based took a dim view of Irish nationalism. Reception Critics Odd Man Out was "hailed as a masterpiece by many critics and a box office hit—at least in Europe, where Reed had gauged the mood of postwar despondency with caliper-like accuracy." New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther praised the performances and the plotting of the early sequences in the film, which he compared favorably to The Informer, but he criticized the subsequent portions of the film, which he described as "fumbled" by shifting attention away from Mason and his motivations to "cryptic characters," relieving the protagonist of his illustrative role, and "whatever it is they are proving—if anything—is anybody's guess." The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote "This film puts Reed high in the first rank of directors." Box office