Review #1,396: 'No Way Out' (1950)

Despite possessing all the handsome features expected of a male star in the 1950s, actor Richard Widmark ended up playing some of the most loathsome and outright disgusting characters of his era. After his star-making turn in Henry Hathaway's terrific Kiss of Death, Widmark found himself typecast as villains and anti-heroes in the subsequent years, before reinventing himself as a hero later in life. Looking back at Widmark's career, his performances are savage even by today's standards, and he perhaps never played a character so utterly vile as that of mobster Ray Biddle in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's No Way Out. Biddle is both gangster and racist, the worst type of person, and starts the film being wheeled into a hospital with his brother after a robbery gone wrong.

The Biddle brothers have both been injured in a shoot-out with the police, but elder brother Johnny (Dick Paxton) is more seriously ill than it would appear. Tasked with taking care of the hoodlums is Dr. Luther Books (Sidney Poitier), an intern who has just earned his license to practise medicine and the first African-American doctor to work at the hospital. Concerned with Johnny's slurred speech and erratic behaviour, Brooks suspects a brain tumour and starts a spinal tap, only to be bombarded with racist abuse from Ray. Johnny dies soon after, and Ray naturally accuses Brooks of murder. After consulting with chief medical resident Dr. Wharton (Stephen McNally), they both agree on the diagnosis, and also that an autopsy is the only way to know for certain. But state laws only permit an autopsy with a family member's approval, and Ray isn't going to give it. With racial tension across the city brewing, Brooks and Wharton visit Ray's ex-wife Edie (Linda Darnell) in the hope that she can make Ray see sense.

By keeping the majority of the story within the hospital setting, Mankiewicz and co-writer Lesser Samuels (who would go on to pen the great Ace in the Hole for Billy Wilder) keep the animosity at a personal level. The film would go on to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay. Brooks must remain stone-faced as he is abused by Ray after genuinely trying to save his brother's life, and Poitier is magnificent in an very early role. His relationship with Ray, who refuses to see sense even when given proof, is incredibly raw even by contemporary standards. Ray is the catalyst for the trouble at the film's centre, and his actions cause a rippling effect throughout the surrounding neighbourhoods, with the inhabitants of an-all black area gearing up for a fight with the whites from Ray's neck of the woods. This highlights the fact that the themes the film is keen to explore aren't just confined to the hospital, but represent a problem of a much wider scale. It's a film that is sadly still relevant today, over 60 years later, and Widmark's ferocity only makes the experience all the more powerful.


Directed by: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Starring: Richard Widmark, Sidney Poitier, Linda Darnell, Stephen McNally, Harry Bellaver
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie