Storm Warning

A very nice film overall, with Ronald Reagan probably turning in the best performance of this cast. Also notable for its direct attack on the Klu Klux Klan at a time when they were still a force. But this is also where the film gets a little strange. Virtually no mention is made of the Klan's ideology -- other than a few passing references to "hate" and "bigotry". There is a mob lynching/murder at the start of the film -- but it is not a racial attack. It is the killing of a white reporter who had been investigating and threatening to "expose" the Klan. Expose them for what? Tax evasion! They had been selling Klan trinkets to members and not reporting the income. The Klan is shown as essentially a criminal organization whose purpose is to fleece its own members for profit. In fact not one black actor has a line in this film. I am sure the producer's intentions were noble and maybe they felt they could not address the issue of racism head on, and therefore chose a somewhat oblique approach to discredit the Klan. But I can't help but feel that there is a certain disingenuousness to this film. Maybe this was brave for 1951, I really don't know.

This film had a near-perfect lead cast...This was a terrific concept and storyline that begged to be executed to its fullest potential. The two weakest factors here are the screenplay (Richard Brooks notwithstanding) and the direction; the Fuchs/Brooks treatment should have been credited as Story, while a definite re-write was in order. Stuart Heisler, as good as he was, fell flat here. This film needed either King Vidor, Howard Hawks, or William Wellman at the directorial helm. Dalton Trumbo should have done the screenplay ... Or if he could have been persuaded, the one and only John Steinbeck (who scripted 'Viva Zapata' 1952)... Ginger Rogers was perfectly cast, as was the girl next door, Doris Day. Reagan was good but Fred MacMurray would have been better and edgier (a la 'Double Indemnity'). This film could have been a cinema masterpiece. There was at least one scene in which Reagan actually says "well..." Of all the superstar actresses of the Golden Age of Hollywood, Ginger Rogers had to be the most luscious and delectable...Simply because she didn't try to be. She just was...

I'm used to the cast in much lighter fare. Ronald Reagan was impressive enough as the crusading D.A., Ginger Rogers was incredibly convincing in every single scene, and light and lively Doris Day did not sing a note. While her character could seem a bit dimwitted at times, her portrayal was on the mark and very believable, given the attitudes and beliefs of the small town in which she resided. Steve Cochran was also good, as her husband, and the bedroom scene wherein he tries to seduce sister-in-law Rogers is very suggestive for its time, though seemingly heavily edited. Nobody could play a thick headed womanizing weasel like Cochran could.

Ginger Rogers witnesses a lynching by the Klan. When two of the men remove their hoods, she recognizes one of them as her brother-in-law, husband to her pregnant sister, played by Doris Day. Reagan is the honest DA intent on getting to the bottom of the lynching - the guy who was lynched was a reporter doing investigative journalism, jailed on a trumped up DUI. The heads of the local Klan are worried about all of this, not because of their nocturnal activities, but because they have been using the Klansmen and bilking them of their money for dues, insignia, etc. Grifters using the naivete and prejudices of a mob of rubes to enrich themselves? Suddenly this film is getting quite timely.

The film as a whole has a very dark element throughout, fittingly, but surprising for its time. Bringing the Ku Klux Klan to the forefront of American cinema in pre-civil rights days, handled as well as it is here, makes for a very interesting, gripping and entertaining film.

So many actors of Hollywood's Golden Age were typecast in familiar roles, but seeing these stars sink their teeth into a well-written screenplay and a deftly directed movie is a real treat.

A crackling good melodrama from the socially conscious studio of record, Warner Bros.

Director Heisler really knows his way around crowds. The boisterous scenes in the bowling alley and liquor lounge are electric with vitality and look nothing like a bunch of Hollywood extras. At the same time, Jerry Wald was a major producer at Warner's and I expect it was he who made sure the small town ambiance is as authentic as it is. There are elements here that suggest a project somewhere between A and B levels of production.

Catch those earmarks of noir in just the first few minutes—the all-night bus, the train whistle, the dampened streets, and the lonely diner. Right away a menacing universe is defined for us. But oddly, this is a KKK film that never once mentions race and shows, by my count, only one black person. Odd for a drama, which by implication takes place in the deep South. My guess is that the writers Brooks and Fuchs wanted to show that the Klan is not only a menace to Blacks, but Whites, as well.

It's a fairly plausible script, though how a DA (Reagan) could get elected with such out- spoken anti-Klan views remains a stretch. What really works, in my book, is the chemistry between the sisters (Day & Rogers). Not only do they look alike, but there's genuine warmth between them. Thus, it's no stretch to think that Marsha (Rogers) would do nothing to jeopardize Lucy's (Day) happiness. And how visually right Cochran is for his part as the blue-collar Romeo, though his sniveling seems overdone at times.

I really like the way the screenplay embeds the Klan in the very fabric of the town. These are not ordinary hoodlums despite their violent activities, and a bolder script would have shown more fully what the attraction of the Klan was for these townsfolk (there's one loaded mention of making sure women can walk safely down the street). There were a number of these racially charged dramas during this period—No Way Out (1950), The Well (1951), Lost Boundaries (1949)—and all are strong dramas, including this one. However, the McCarthy purges soon put an end to social problem films for the remainder of the decade, and now they await rediscovery by fresh generations. This is one of them.

There's an almost Tennessee Williams quality to the storyline. A woman (Ginger Rogers) travels south to visit her sister (Doris Day) but enroute witnesses a murder by the KKK. Arriving at the sister's house, she discovers her married to one of the Klansmen (Steve Cochran), her crude brother-in-law. Tension builds when Rogers reports the incident to the young DA (Ronald Reagan)and the film builds to an interesting climax. Somewhat like watching Blanche du Bois visit her sister in a southern town and finding herself threatened by her earthy brother-in-law in 'Streetcar Named Desire'. All of the leads are excellent--Ginger Rogers, Doris Day, Ronald Reagan and Steve Cochran in this unusually strong melodrama, gritty and realistic with surprisingly good work from Doris Day who had only been in films a short time. Definitely a film that deserves more recognition and relatively unknown by today's film fans.