Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 18-January-09
Spoiler Rating: Medium

Storm Warning (1951)

Have you ever wondered what it would be like watching Doris Day, Ginger Rogers, and Ronald Reagan at a Ku Klux Klan meeting? Well, I hadn't either, but I know now thanks to Storm Warning.

The movie's trailer (included on the DVD) touts Storm Warning as "the screen's most fearless blast of drama," a full-on attack of the Klan and its "cowardly" adherents. This is not exaggeration. The gripping story begins as a career woman (Rogers) plays hooky from a business trip to visit her newlywed sister (Day) in a small town. Arriving in the evening, Rogers finds all the natives acting strangely and all the businesses near the bus stop closing up in haste. Walking to her sister's place of work (the cabbie having refused her fare), she witnesses a gang of white-robed and -hooded people beating a bound man and then shooting him to death. She rushes to find her sister, who takes her home. Day bubbles over with love and pride for her husband and cannot wait to show him off to big sis. But the meeting is not cordial. Rogers recognizes her brother-in-law (Steve Cochran) as one of two men who removed their hoods after the shooting.

This is a nerve-wracking situation for the little family, and things are no less knotty in the town at large. (Viewers may be surprised by these actors' aptitude for looking grim.) The only person not cowed by the Klan is a prosecutor (Reagan) who has been trying to nail its members for similar crimes but has never been able to get one of his neighbors to bear witness against them. The hoodlums rule the town, putting its citizens in the odd position of hating the negative press the Klansmen generate but protecting them from being convicted or even tried. (The hometown branch engages in fraud and extortion as well as the lynchings that drive the Klan's infamy.) From beginning to end the movie acknowledges how complicated the situation is on both a personal and civic level. While it is morally wrong to let a lawless mob go unquestioned and unpunished, it is understandable why individuals are loath to step forward and get the job done.

As the brother-in-law becomes more panicked and therefore more brutish, Reagan tries to get Rogers to admit what she saw in court. Meanwhile, the local leader of the Klan (Hugh Sanders), the second man Rogers could identify, decides to take matters into his own hands. The suspense builds around whether Rogers will shield a criminal for her sister's sake; whether the brother-in-law will commit violence again; whether the sister will realize the truth; and whether justice will finally be done. The plot culminates in a Klan meeting fit to make one's skin crawl, complete with torture of a central character and a heavy price for condoning evil. Storm Warning might be accused of a degree of sensationalism, but it is undoubtedly an engrossing and commendable film.

Copyright © 2009 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.