James Whale was certainly an enigmatic figure – while he is most well-known for defining the genre of horror as we know it (being amongst the first auteurs to ever make a career out of scaring audiences), he was known to try other genres from time to time, experimenting with different stories and finding a way to assert his own creative vision on a range of new themes. This brings us to Hello Out There!, an adaptation of the one-act play by William Saroyan that was unfortunately the final film in Whale’s illustrious career. The problem isn’t that this is a bad film (it is actually quite good when taken for what it is), but that it feels like an anticlimactic way to end one of the most iconoclastic careers in the history of cinema, one that was defined by experimentation and pushing boundaries beyond breaking point. This film is far too small and straightforward to be a satisfactory swan song for Whale, and while the circumstances surrounding its creation are understandable (as the director had been retired from filmmaking for nearly a decade when we agreed to direct what was supposed to be the first in a series of short films produced under a general artistic collective), it doesn’t make up for the fact that, beyond a few intriguing ideas that come about through the framing and structuring of the story, Hello Out There! isn’t the most consistently strong effort, and seems like a disappointing end to an astonishing body of work that warranted something slightly more compelling as its conclusion.

However, Hello Out There! is not without its merits, and my opinion does veer towards the positive, especially if we look at this from the perspective of short-form storytelling. Running at only 31 minutes, the film is quite short, which is an indication of how closely Whale was working with the text. Like many instances of stage-to-screen adaptations (especially those produced with the intention of airing as part of a series or in a collective bundle of films), there was very little freedom awarded to the director in terms of artistic expression, with the narrative and dialogue remaining almost sacrosanct, meaning that the only malleable aspect was how the director would bring it to the screen, which is where the boundary between cinema and stage becomes stronger and more challenging. Whale doesn’t neglect this responsibility, and shows himself to be an incredibly capable filmmaker, finding interesting ways to represent a text that is essentially just two characters talking in a room, one in a prison cell, the other free to roam as she pleases. The framing is fascinating, and is perhaps more complex than we’d expect from a film such as this, and the use of light and shadows creates an unsettling atmosphere – sometimes it feels like Whale is desperately trying to shoehorn elements of horror into the narrative without outright changing the story. It’s almost frustrating how restrictive this model of filmmaking is, because we can practically feel Whale bursting to do something interesting with the material, but was limited in both resources and by the strongest commands of those in control of the production.

At the very least, while it may not contribute much in terms of a narrative, Hello Out There! has two very interest components that make it worth watching. The first is Whale’s genuinely earnest attempt to do something interesting with this material, proving that even when working as essentially a director-for-hire (undoubtedly the result of being persuaded to come out of retirement at the behest of Huntington Hartford, who commissioned the film and ultimately produced it), he was capable of stringing together something quite interesting, even if it is more effective as individual components than as the sum total of its parts, which is where it slightly falters. The second were the performances – there are essentially two characters for the majority of the story, with the introduction of a third later on during the climactic final moments. Despite its short length, there is a lot of dialogue compacted into this film, with Harry Morgan and Marjorie Steele being tasked with not only handling the volume of writing, but also characterising these people as more than just archetypes, which is difficult in a film that could have easily have been over twice this length and not lost our interest. It’s a showcase for its actors, and while neither of them were established stars at the time (Morgan would go on to become a very notable character actor in later years, after playing a series of smaller roles in films across the previous decade), they do put in the effort, with very few of the problems with Hello Out There! coming from their performances, which did warrant a more concise and interesting film.

The problem isn’t that Hello Out There! is not a good film – it’s just not a sufficient one, especially when its only real merit in terms of cultural cache is being the final entry into a very impressive career. This film tells a story that understandably worked well on stage – the limited space lends itself to deep introspection through engaging dialogue. In the transition to film, much of this raw energy was lost, and even the director’s most concerted efforts to preserve it fall flat, since it is just too restrictive to be salvaged beyond just the status of a peculiar curio – but even just looking at it from this perspective, we can see that it does have value, even if only from the most tenuous places. It’s a well-made film, and approaches the formal aspects of the filmmaking with a genuine interest – and then ultimately decoding everything contained within this story allows us to see that there is a deeper meaning. It just required a more expansive perspective, with the ideal situation being that Whale would be allowed to extend on the original text and thus take it in new directions. Taken for what it is, Hello Out There! is a fine but inconsequential film that does represent the final stand for one of history’s great directors, and not much else.