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| Linda Darnell, Sidney Poitier, and Richard Widmark in No Way Out |
Although its treatment of race relations in America seems naive today, No Way Out stands up as a solid drama about an issue that in the post-war years was finally receiving the attention from Hollywood filmmakers that it had too long deserved. It also launched the career of Sidney Poitier as well as, in smaller roles, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. The plot hinges on the novelty of a Black doctor, Luther Brooks (Poitier), serving as an intern in hospital in a large city. When two brothers, Ray (Richard Widmark) and Johnny Biddle (Dick Paxton) are admitted to the prison ward of the hospital after being shot by the police during a robbery, Brooks notices that Johnny's symptoms are not just that of a leg wound; suspecting some sort of mental impairment, Brooks does a spinal tap, during which Johnny dies. Ray Biddle has already demonstrated his racist animosity toward Brooks, and claims that he killed his brother. An autopsy would confirm Brooks's suspicion that Johnny's death was caused by an undiagnosed brain tumor, but Ray won't allow it, and he's backed up by his brother George (Harry Bellaver) and initially by Johnny's ex-wife, Edie (Linda Darnell). She once had an affair with Ray, but she loathes him and has done what she can to escape the poor-white neighborhood, Beaver Canal, where she grew up and the Biddles still live. Ray spurs the rabble-rousers of Beaver Canal to start a race riot, but they are met with resistance from the Black neighborhoods. The film is a little over-plotted: The crux of the plot, the autopsy, gets resolved in a way that isn't entirely convincing, and the confrontation of Brooks and Ray Biddle arrives in what's almost a coda, as an anti-climax. Widmark is allowed to overact in the role of Ray, and Poitier has yet to acquire the confident presence that made him a star. The best performance in the film comes from a deglamorized Darnell, who gives Edie a real toughness and vulnerability, suggesting that her inclination to do the right thing is at war with her experience growing up in Beaver Canal. The film's portrayal of raw racism still has the power to shock: We rarely hear white actors use the N-word today, even when their roles as bigots might seem to require it, and I flinched when a white woman spat in the face of Poitier's character. It's weaker in the treatment of racial violence: No one on either side seems to have any guns.
