FILM NOIR CLASSICS Hosted by the “Dean of Film Noir,” Prof.Foster Hirsch
NO WAY OUT
Monday, February 27 at 7:30 pm
Members $11 | Public $16 | Includes Reception
Enjoy transcendent live music by the trio Moontide in our café before and after the film.
Sidney Poitier and Richard Widmark star in this tense landmark tale of a black doctor whose decision to treat two racist white robbery suspects threatens his own community.
A pioneering film about racial tensions in 1950, No Way Out was no less controversial when NBC dropped plans to telecast it on “Saturday Night at the Movies” in 1962. Sidney Poitier (in his screen debut) is a black doctor, Luther Brooks, assigned to take care of Ray Biddle (Richard Widmark), a racist criminal. Dr. Brooks, hired by the police hospital as part of an overall program to integrate the staff, keeps his temper in check as Ray spouts his racist invective. When Ray’s brother, also wounded, dies in the hospital, the blustering bigot holds Dr. Brooks responsible and sends word to his gang to wreak vengeance on the city’s black community. (USA, 1950, 106 min., English, NR, DCP | Dir. Joseph Mankiewicz)
Foster Hirsch, Professor at Brooklyn College, is a pioneer in the development of Film Studies and author of more than a score of important books ranging from works about Woody Allen, the Actors Studio and American theater to his magisterial biography, Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King. His current work-in-progress is a sprawling study of film during the crucial transition period of the 1950s.
