• No Way Out

6/28/24 (Fri), home, 8:00-9:45p

Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1950 “social issue” film deals with racial discrimination in a public hospital, giving Sydney Poitier his breakout role. Poitier is the first black doctor to be accepted in the county hospital. His first case involves removing bullets from two viciously racist brothers. The symptoms of one lead him to believe that the patient has a brain tumor, which he immediately moves to treat. The operation proves unsuccessful and the patient dies. The horrified brother (a fearless Richard Widmark) is certain that Poitier murdered him out of spite. At the same time, he refuses to allow an autopsy that would determine the truth. His deep hatred of blacks blinds him to any other possibility.

Though supported by the hospital, Poitier desperately wants to prove his innocence. In order to get family permission for an autopsy, he tracks down the dead man’s widow and travels with the head doctor to seek her help. Living in a white-trash part of the city where hating blacks is like mother’s milk, she doesn’t want to get involved. When she then visits her brother-in-law in the hospital, he convinces her that her late husband would not have died if the doctor had been white. He tells her to go to the mob to take revenge on the black community.

Word of the impending attack is overheard by the hospital’s black elevator man. When he conveys that to the black community, they stage a brutal preemptive attack. Poitier eventually confesses to the “murder” in order to force the coroner to conduct an autopsy. That autopsy ultimately clears Poitier but doesn’t satisfy Widmark, whose belief in Poitier’s guilt-by-blackness is unshakeable. Widmark escapes from the hospital and sneaks into Poitier’s home in order to kill him. Then the tables turn.

Poitier is dignified and impressive in his debut role, not least when a white woman literally spits in his face in the hospital, and Linda Darnell is superb as the tough widow from the low side of town. The standout, though, is Widmark in a go-for-broke performance as a supremely unlikeable villain. He spits out exceedingly offensive language (which probably wouldn’t be allowed today under any circumstances) in an attempt to intimidate Poitier and seems to have a permanent sneer on his face. No last-minute awakening here to the evils of racism or such; he was born with his beliefs and will die with them, regardless of the logic or evidence. It’s still a shocking portrayal and a great performance. Mankiewicz returned to the theme of racial discrimination years later in Pinky, but Widmark’s character really shows what society was/is up against. Amanda Randolph, uncredited as the maid who befriends Darnell, was also excellent. I was surprised to see a young Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee in minor roles, both uncredited.

The film is old in many ways, not just in the language (colored, negro and such) but in the nicely unfussy direction. While it doesn’t entirely escape melodrama, it addresses a serious issue head on and is not afraid to take it to its logical conclusions. Very much worth watching.