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I first saw "Storm Center" when I was eight years old. Even though the film was meant for adults, my parents respected my intelligence and maturity to think I would get the film's meaning. I did. Even though I didn't see the film again until I was an adult, I understood how brave and daring the film was. An example of this might have been that my next door neighbor kids didn't want to play "Cowboys and Indians." It was "Americans and Communists" for them. That was the mentality of 1956 America. Fear was everywhere. A right to voice an unpopular opinion was not only unpopular, but made one suspicious. Bette Davis' role as Yankee liberal librarian Alicia Hull perfectly fit in with our family. She wasn't a left-wing radical, but she did want to have the radicals have a right to speak, no matter how odious. My thought is that when this film shows up at 3 am, some Tea Party types will stay up to watch and pray Bette gets burned at the stake.

Bette Davis plays the title role and in fact she is the Storm Center of this film, a librarian who wouldn't remove a book from the shelf called The Communist Dream. Bette had the notion that those who want to should read the book and find out if it was a dream or a nightmare.

This is one of Davis's best performances, one that had it been in an A film might have earned her another Academy Award nomination. Bette plays a World War I widow whose work is her life as a librarian in your average small town USA. The character is very close to the real Davis who remarked that work is the one thing in life that is stable and when done well, will give you more satisfaction and no pain than any relationship.

A chance remark by her associate at the library, Kim Hunter to Brian Keith a city councilman she's dating sends the ambitious Keith off on a Red hunt. Keith finds out that she joined many do gooder organizations back in the day later labeled Communist fronts and together with the aforementioned book is proof positive that the Red Menace has come to town.

There's also a subplot involving young Kevin Coughlin, a bright young kid who totally does not connect with his blue collar dad, Joe Mantell. Davis has befriended him, but when the stories about her start to circulate faster than the library books out, he turns on her most dramatically and sets the stage for the film's climax. If there was a special award that year for best performance by a child, Coughlin would have taken it hands down.

Writer Daniel Taradash directed Storm Center in his one and only time in the director's chair, he should have done more. There are a lot of carefully done small performances in Storm Center showing a lot of small town types. Taradash carefully did his characters, there are no stereotypes as you might expect in a film like this.

Two of Davis's most consistent supporters are café owner Joseph Kearns and minister Edward Platt. I liked Platt's performance very much, the minister is not some bible thumping right-wing clown, but a very intelligent man who understands what the Constitution and the First Amendment are all about.

Paul Kelly has a nice performance here as well, one of his last. He plays a judge who is a decent man, but a guy inclined to always go along and take the easy way out. He's Davis's long time friend and he thinks he's giving her good advice in telling her to just go along with the majority wishes.

Sad to say Storm Center is maybe more relevant today than it was at the time it was out. Back then it was a book called The Communist Dream, today it's Heather Has Two Mommies. All over America there are politicians like Keith looking to make cheap points exploiting prejudice.

Storm Center is an underrated gem of a film, one of the best in Davis's career. There's an old adage in that when you talk about the Bill of Rights you're a conservative, when you actually try to put them in practice you're a radical. I've rarely seen that demonstrated better on screen than in Storm Center and the performances of Brian Keith and Bette Davis.

There is just a handful of contemporary movies from the fifties dealing with that dark chapter of McCarthyism. "Invasion of the body snatchers" and the allegoric western "Silver Lode" are well known. Hence it's strange that this one, probably the most decided and direct anti-McCarthyism movie of them all, is almost forgotten today. Screenwriter Daniel Taradash's ("Picnic" / "From here to Eternity") directorial debut "Storm Center" is utterly convincing and politically correct. There are fine performances throughout (especially Brian Keith does a good job), and even the kid actors are bearable. The title credits are an early artwork by Saul Bass who obviously must have been involved in directing the climactic burning books sequences.

In today's environment--with civil liberties in question and with a book praising Joe McCarthy on the best-seller lists--this powerful and eloquent anti-censorship film needs to be reissued. Bette Davis plays a small-town librarian asked to remove a communist-oriented book from her library. The city council tries to buy her off by offering to build a children's wing to the library that she has been asking for--after thinking, she refuses to remove the book. Not only do they try to take her job from her, but she becomes the target of a smear campaign based on half-truths and innuendo. As other reviews have

stated, both the "good" and the "bad" characters are three-dimensional, and Paul Kelly in particular is superb as an old friend of Bette's who tries to defend her but is caught up in the hysteria. The scene where Kelly is asked to vote to condemn her, pauses, and lowers his head in shame is quite moving. Columbia always made good, solid B-movies, and the direct, matter-of- fact presentation of this material only strengthens the overall impact. Also, The musical score, although subtle and not calling attention to itself, is perfectly crafted. In fact, the film is filled with nice little touches. Note to Columbia/Sony: put this out on DVD immediately! It will get uniformly positive reviews from the critics and it has a message needed now more than ever. If you have any opportunity to see this, do not miss it.

Between the time that Bette Davis finished THE STAR and her appearance in POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES, none of her films was an outstanding box office success. This was not a problem that she alone suffered. Only a handful of the stars of the 1930s and 1940s were able to maintain their starring positions in the 1950s, many being plagued by bad health, aging, or blacklisting. Davis at least still had some films to appear in, including this forgotten one: STORM CENTER. For a woman who was (at the time) washed up, Davis demonstrated she could still deliver a restrained and intelligent performance in a picture with an important message.

THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS

STORM CENTER is about politics and censorship. Davis is a librarian, and is only concerned in running her town library as well as possible, and in encouraging literacy among the children of the town. One of the children is played by Kevin Coughlin, a wonderful child actor who would grow into a capable actor before being killed in a traffic accident when only 30 years old. Kevin is bookish - too bookish according to his "know nothing" blue-collar father (Joe Mantell). There is a struggle or tug of war between Mantell, wanting his son to be more like a typical boy (i.e. a sports oriented kid) and Davis, who wants Kevin's mind to grow.

Adding to her problems is that a book in the library that Davis has put out is controversial. A number of citizens would like it removed. Brian Keith, a new member of the city council, decides to take this up as a political issue (for his own advantage, of course). Soon, all sorts of pressures are put on Davis to get rid of the nasty book, and she refuses to do so. The pressures turn nastier and nastier. Despite the support of an old friend (Paul Kelly), Davis faces dismissal. In the meantime Kevin has been affected by the near hysteria sweeping through the town. His father is pretty happy about that - maybe his son will become normal. The father lets Kevin know that the problem is the library itself. So Kevin, in his own hysterical state, sets fire to the town's library.

I saw this film only once, back in the 1970s. The arson sequence always remained with me, for the director/writer Daniel Taradash, showed the names of the titles of the burning books throughout the building. There is a build-up in the titles, as most are classic or well known works, but the last is a life of Jesus Christ - certainly the last person most right wing American fanatics would think of destroying (at least in their claimed rhetoric) from among all potential targets.

There is a sense of shame at the conclusion from Keith and the townspeople, but Davis shows no triumph over them. She simply starts planning to rebuild the library, and starts planning to help Kevin regain his normal state of mind.

It was a fine piece of film, and it is a pity it is so little known or remembered. More people should have a chance to watch it and decide for themselves about it.