STORM WARNING (1951)

Model Marsha Mitchell (Ginger Rogers) has taken a detour on her way to her latest job to the small town of Rock Point to visit her sister Lucy (Doris Day) whom she hasn't seen since Lucy got married more than a year ago. She arrives in the evening and finds it unusual that most of the town near the bus depot has already shut down; even the taxi driver claims he can't take another fare. As Marsha walks to Lucy's house, she witnesses a gang of men dressed in robes and hoods bring a tied-up prisoner out of the courthouse and beat him. As the prisoner runs away, one of the hooded men shoots him dead. He pulls off his hood and Marsha, hiding in the shadows, gets a good look at him. In a daze, Marsha walks to Lucy's home where their happy reunion is short-circuited when Lucy's husband Hank (Steve Cochran) comes home and Marsha recognizes him as the killer. She can't hide her knowledge and Hank breaks down and admits it, claiming it was a terrible accident—the reporter had been snooping around writing an exposé of the town as a center of Ku Klux Klan activity, and the Klansmen had just wanted to scare him away, but things got out of hand. Marsha buys his story—though we see that Cochran actually feels no remorse—and plans to leave the next morning, but when prosecutor Burt Rainey (Ronald Reagan) finds out she was a witness, he tries to convince her to stay and speak out at the inquest. Marsha is put under pressure and pulled in different directions by the law, the KKK, and Lucy and Hank; with the very real danger of revenge weighing on her mind, she feels trapped.

This is a somewhat unusual social issue movie in that we are never shown exactly why the Klansmen are bad people. Of course, an audience in 1951 would know (as would an audience of today), but the viewer has to make assumptions about the Klan to imagine that they aren't just some small-fry bullying hooligans—no activity against African-Americans or Jews is shown here, and the biggest worry of the Klan leader (played by Hugh Sanders), aside from the murder charge, is that a reporter might find out that he has been funneling dues money from Klan members into his own pocket, and could be brought up on charges of income tax evasion. The leads, Rogers and Reagan, both seem unwilling to commit fully to their parts: Reagan more or less sleepwalks through the movie, and Rogers usually looks more irritated than scared or outraged. Cochran and Day, however, are quite good as they enact a "Streetcar Named Desire" dynamic, with Cochran as the sexy but brutal animalistic husband and Day as the peppy new wife who blissfully ignores any problems. Day is especially good playing against type—this was her first non-musical comedy role. The movie has a noir feel to it, right through to the downbeat ending, and fans of film noir will enjoy this. Pictured are Day, Rogers and Cochran. [DVD]