No Way Out

One of the films with which Hollywood began treating race directly at the end of the 1940s, and counted among the hardest. Luther Brooks is a young doctor newly started at a hospital. Two brothers shot by the police are brought in. Brooks treats one of them and the man dies. The surviving brother, Ray, believes the doctor killed him deliberately because he is Black, and starts stirring up the neighbourhood. At the centre is Brooks's request for an autopsy: it is the only way to clear himself, and the family refuses. The narrative arrives at a fight between two neighbourhoods, and the film softens it nowhere. What stands out in the production is the language: the racist speech in the film goes far beyond the Hollywood standard of the period, and it was written that way deliberately. Its exhibition was restricted in some regions as a result. Sidney Poitier plays Brooks in his first film. Richard Widmark plays Ray and Linda Darnell a woman connected to the family. Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed. An important work for anyone who likes classical Hollywood and films of social criticism. Before you watch, know this: the racist language is direct and constant; the choice is part of the criticism but it is hard to sit through.