No Way Out
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
1950/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing
[box] Edie Johnson – Mrs. John Biddle: Yeah I’ve come up in the world. I used to live in a sewer and now I live in a swamp. All those babes do it in the movies. By now I ought to be married to the governor and paying blackmail so he don’t find out I once lived in Beaver Canal.[/box]
This is an interesting cross between a film noir and a message picture featuring Sidney Portier’s debut as a 22-year-old and dynamite performances by Richard Widmark and Linda Darnell. It was quite a departure for director/screenwriter Mankiewicz who made this between his Academy Award winning turns in Letter to Three Wives and All About Eve.
Dr. Luther Brooks (Sidney Portier) is a newly licensed physician working at a county hospital. He has the misfortune to be assigned to duty on the prison ward when Ray (Richard Widmark) and Johnny Bidell are brought in with gunshot wounds suffered in a shootout with police. Ray is almost psychotically racist. Brooks believes Johnny may have a brain tumor and does a spinal tap. When Johnny dies during the procedure Ray accuses him of murdering his brother and plots revenge. Brooks is desperate to get an autopsy done on Johnny to prove his diagnosis but Ray refuses. Brooks then turns to Johnny’s estranged wife Edie (Linda Darnell) to try to get her consent. Ray is one evil SOB and manages to terrorize everyone he can get his hands on. With Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee as Brooks’ brother and sister-in-law.
This suffers from a little preachiness but is basically a gripping revenge tale. Widmark makes a great psychopath and he is made even more repellant than usual by his racist rants. Linda Darnell is quite good and Sidney Portier was solid right from the beginning. This also features some beautiful cinematography by Milton R. Krasner. Apparently the film flopped on release and then was buried for years because television didn’t want to touch it. (Widmark must use the “n” word 100 times.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAb2zHuE9vw
Trailer
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