La porte s'ouvre

I heard a rumor that this was coming out on DVD in 2006. I hope it's true because this is a fascinating film. Actually, "shocking" might be a better word.

Bigotry is the main theme and there is no beating around the bush here. The "n- word" is used at least 20 times in this film in one form or another which is shocking to hear in a classic film. Richard Widmark plays the main bigot and he is fascinating to watch. Few people in his day could play the wild-eyed fanatical villain as well as he could (see "Kiss Of Death" for the best example).

This was Sidney Poiteir's screen debut and he looks about 16 years old! He looks too young to be a doctor even if he is portrayed as someone in their first year of practice. Anyway, with Widmark and Poitier, and a fine supporting cast with some famous names, you have a very, very interesting movie that is long overdue to be made available to the public.

To the film's credit, this shows bigotry on both sides: black and white, although it concentrates more on white against black. Linda Darnell plays perhaps the most interesting role because she is the one person who switches back and forth, unable most of the time to figure out what side to take! For those who remember the Naked City TV series, it's also fun to see Harry Bellaver in here, playing Widmark's deaf-mute brother.

This movie could easily be very dated.....but it isn't.

Sidney Poitier made his screen debut in No Way Out about a young black doctor accused of 'murder' by Richard Widmark. Seeing the two of them you would hardly believe that they in fact became lifelong friends in real life.

The Biddle Brothers, a pair of white trash rednecks, from a neighborhood called Beaver Canal in a large American city, get brought into an emergency room with gunshot wounds. They tried to stick up a gas station and got caught. Sidney Poitier is a young intern on duty and he suspects something more wrong with the younger Biddle's condition. While doing a spinal tap his patient dies and the rabidly racist Widmark playing the older Biddle, accuses Poitier of murder.

No matter how off the wall his charges are, some people listen and some have to investigate. In Poitier's corner is his supervisor Stephen McNally. But Widmark manages to spread his poison and it results in a race riot.

Widmark is something else. Down to this day it's so easy for some to believe they're in a bad situation because someone else or some group else is somehow given preferential treatment. Widmark believes this and he lives in an area where it's taken as gospel. We've rarely seen a portrayal of hate as vivid as this on screen.

Hate whether it's individually or group directed can sometime take on a life of its own. Even when he's confronted with the truth about the ludicrousness of his charges, Widmark still won't let go. It's what's most frightening in No Way Out.

Linda Darnell is excellent also as the former wife of Widmark's brother. She buys into Widmark's hate at first, but she shows a capacity to learn. It can be found in most of us or there would be no hope for the human race.

Joseph Mankiewicz directed and wrote No Way Out. He was at the height of his career winning two best Director Oscars back to back for A Letter to Three Wives and All About Eve. He probably didn't win anything for No Way Out because the Academy voters didn't want to give him everything at that time. He was nominated for Best Screenplay.

Sixty Six years later No Way Out is still a powerful portrayal of racism and its ugly effects on the soul.

I didn't think it was possible for me to be shocked by a film about racism released in 1950, but I was wrong.

In "No Way Out," Richard Widmark plays an absolutely vile racist who spews the most hateful language I've heard in a narrative film in a long time. I found myself actually wincing every time he used some sort of racial epithet, which is frequently. His target is Sidney Poitier, the doctor who he thinks killed his brother while pretending to try to save his life. This specific story of racism plays out against the backdrop of a larger story of racist violence that occurs between a black neighborhood and the white trash enclave that has sworn vengeance against it.

This is a harsh, angry, bitter pill of a movie, and deserves to be rediscovered in our current climate of renewed racial outrage. I'd like to think Widmark's character is a bit of a caricature, but after hearing and seeing some of the people living in our country today, it would seem not. Poitier plays his role the way he played every role he was ever in, while Linda Darnell, as Widmark's former sister-in-law, creates the film's most fascinating character, a woman whose actual experience with black people doesn't jive with what she's been taught to think about them.

What I liked most about "No Way Out" was the way it refuses to condescend to black people and portray them all as too good to be true noble sufferers, the way other movies from the time period do. The scenes set in Poitier's household portray them as just normal people, painfully aware at all times of the burden of being black in America, but otherwise just wanting to go about their lives. The character of a black maid who works for a white doctor was one of my favorites in the movie. She has a warm employee/employer relationship with the doctor, and he even treats her at times like one of the family, but a word or glance she throws out here and there make clear that she never forgets the difference between them, even if he thinks he does.

"No Way Out" brought Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Lesser Samuels an Oscar nomination for Best Story and Screenplay in the same year that Mankiewicz won the awards for Best Director and Best Screenplay for "All About Eve." Good year for him.

Grade: A

I watched this film soon after having seen the dreadfully stupid (but almost universally praised) American History X. The comparison does not make you very optimistic as far as the development of movies with a social message is concerned.

No Way Out is a very good story about racism - maybe the best ever told on screen. It is mainly set in a hospital, where black and white doctors and nurses - among other things - patch up people who bashed each other's heads in in race riots. Sidney Poitier is a very young, upwardly mobile doctor with high ethic standards, Richard Widmark a nasty, racist piece of "white trash" from Beaver Canal who accuses the black doctor of having killed his brother while under his care. This sounds pretty plain, but the screenplay succeeds in giving the characters real personal traits, and the actors fully live up to their task.

I have never seen Sidney Poitier better than here - and this apparently was his first screen appearance! The young doctor is, on the one hand, angry because of the racially motivated humiliations he has to endure. On the other hand, the accusations of the white bigot really shake him badly. He is having serious doubts about his abilities as a doctor because of it, although he is sure he did the right thing. In my opinion it was very wise to introduce these self doubts which are not race related. It makes of Poitier's character a well intentioned conscientious individual many people without regard of race (or gender or religion or whatever) can relate to.

Richard Widmark as the black doctor's racist adversary gives an equally brilliant performance. We see him here at his slimiest, meanest. He really is pure hate - yet even his character is more than a stereotype. His hate is propelled by an encompassing self pity which is really nauseating! This becomes most evident in the dramatic final scene. "Little Black Simba!", he shouts again and again to the black doctor like a moron, and the stupid taunting gets more and more pathetic. Then, badly wounded, he dissolves into a whimpering bundle and the viewer comes to the conclusion that the worst punishment for that creature consists in just staying alive!

It is my opinion that the ever more persistent culture of coolness will not make the world a better or more desirable place to live in. Therefore I really was delighted to see that No Way Out is refreshingly uncool. It addresses social and philosophical issues in a down to earth way. Unforgettable to me is the conversation between the girl from Beaver Canal, the racist's brother's former wife, and the black servant of a white doctor, the boss of Sidney Poitier's character. The servant tells the girl that in her free time she likes to invite friends and cook elaborate meals for them. That is a lot of work you're doing in your free time, the girl remarks. To this the servant says: I like doing it, and it makes me feel I am somebody. Outdated? Corny? What do I care! The statement is still valid.

It should be noted that No Way Out is not a story of different groups of people pitted against each other but a story about individuals who have to find themselves in society and decide what stand they are taking towards civilisation. The movie states that civilisation and civilised behavior is not something you can take for granted and that it depends on the choice of every single human being.

Although "No Way Out" looks a little dated in comparison to more recent racial dramas, such as "Mississippi Burning," "No Way Out" is still a very tense DRAMA. Poitier (in his first film role) gives a truly break-out performance, but it's Widmark who really steals the show. The riot scenes are beautifully choreographed, lending serious mood to the action.