You can't imagine two more dissimilar movies, the sleek verbal sophistication and lively comedic jousting of "Eve" versus the heated urban urgency of this hard-hitting drama, an ugly exploration of white-trash racism, unfortunately still current 74 years later. Sidney Poitier, in his debut (and he had to do supporting parts for years after), is fourth-billed but very much the protagonist, a young doctor unluckily assigned to treat two brothers shot up during a gas station robbery, unbilled Dick Paxton and a very chilling Richard Widmark-a prejudiced lowlife who blames Poitier for his brother's death on the operating table, and no amount of evidence is going to dissuade him. Senior doctor/administrator Stephen McNally backs Poitier, and so, eventually, does the dead brother's widow, Linda Darnell, who looks like hell here and.plunges into an unsympathetic role with abandon. Widmark's racism is almost too ugly to witness, but it captures the thinking of this sad class of people. There's some stilted dialogue: A bit too much is made of Poitier's happy home life and loving, trusting wife, who has a long soliloquy that reeks of stilted overwriting. A host of dignified, mostly unbilled African-American actors fills out the cast (Ruby Dee is Poitier's sister-in-law), and the plotting, with Widmark's antagonism turning into a race riot and murder attempt, builds excitingly and tensely. Maybe some bigots in 1950 saw this and recognized their own irrational hate; wouldn't happen today. Not an easy watch, but a worthwhile one, and you may find yourself shaking your head a lot at how little has changed.
Review of No Way Out
