Storm Warning on Blu-ray is both full of, and lacking, message

Warner Bros. Pictures

A man in hooded white robes. A man running for his life.Gunfire. In the South to visit her sister Lucy, Marsha Mitchell witnesses a Ku Klux Klan murder. Once safely with Lucy, Marsha gasps at the terror she has seen … then recognizes her sister’s brutish, new husband as one of the killers. She could lie, protect her sister and leave town. Or she could be the one person brave enough to bring the Klan to justice. Ginger Rogers and Doris Day as the sisters, Steve Cochran as the husband, and Ronald Reagan as a crusading D.A. give some of the finest performances of their careers in this explosive indictment of a hate that poisoned America from within. Part thriller, part exposé, part stirring human drama, Storm Warning is ‘feverish..engrossing’ (Leonard Maltin’s Classic Movie Guide) — and moviemaking at its most powerful.

REVIEW

Ginger Rogers. Doris Day. Ronald Reagan. Sounds nice, right? A musical, perhaps? A fun romp? Something lite and easy? Maybe even a monkey?

How about the Ku Klux Klan?

Storm Warning, now on Blu-ray courtesy of Warner Archive, may not be the movie you expect when you see such a cast, but it stands as a notable exception in their filmographies, a Tennesee Williams-esque Southern Gothic story with noir roots. With direction from ‘Noir 101 Professor’ Stuart Heisler (The Glass Key, Tokyo Joe), a script by Richard Brooks (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, In Cold Blood) and Daniel Fuchs (films directed by Elia Kazan and Douglas Sirk), and produced by Jerry Wald (Mildred Pierce, Adventures of Don Juan) the pedigree is strong and the inspirational lineage is clear in this fine film that has been largely forgotten, but now recently restored to continue a conversation that has perhaps only stalled out since the 1950s.

Ginger Rogers plays Marsha, a traveling dress model, who steps off the bus in the town of Rock Point to visit her sister, Lucy (Doris Day), whom she hasn’t seen in two years. It’s been so long, in fact, that she hasn’t even met Lucy’s new husband, Hank (Steve Cochran).

The town of Rock Point is a noir landscape if you’ve ever seen one, largely empty, lit only with street lamps, a calm before a storm. Marsha soon learns, however, that the titular storm is only about to hit and she will be in its eye, as she witnesses the KKK drag a man from the jail, murdering him in the street, in a harrowing scene that doesn’t hold back. (At the time of release, Warner called their own movie ‘as startling as the screen has dared to be’ and there are many reasons why that claim is overblown, but this frightening scene makes a strong case.)

Marsha finds her sister at her bowling alley job and is distraught. ‘Lucy,’ she says, ‘I just saw a man murdered.’ She brings her exasperation to a whisper when she realizes that the Klan members are in the alley with her. Lucy takes Marsha home and insists that she tell the story to Hank. She’s tight-lipped when she realizes that Hank is one of the men she saw take his hood off after the murder.

What do you do now?

It’s a clear rip from A Streetcar Named Desire (although the film adaption wouldn’t hit screens for months, the Broadway production was a massive hit years before), complete with Steve Cochran doing his best impression of Brando’s Stanley Kowalski, complete Kowalski’s sexual predator instincts.

It gets even more complicated when County Prosecutor Burt Rainey (Ronald Reagan) hears about Marsha’s story and asks for her testimony in court. He’s been unsuccessfully trying to nail the Klan (you could write textbooks about the film where Ronald Reagan not only hates the KKK, but tries to shut them down), but Marsha is torn on what to do.

Though largely film noir, the movie finds itself a courtroom drama for various portions of its runtime. What it can’t seem to find, however, is cutting-edge social commentary. It’s believed that decision-makers at Warner mandated that the film’s boundary-pushing be less pushed, resulting in a film that hints at what it wants to say but isn’t allowed to say it. In fact, the movie never once mentions race. Or religion. It never mentions that Black people and Jewish people were the primary victims of the Klan. The man killed at the beginning is white, murdered because he was a newspaperman writing an exposé on their crimes.

That’s not to say that the movie isn’t good, it is. Or that it still isn’t surprising that this movie was made 70 years ago. Warner was known for cutting scrips from the pages of newspapers, so it shouldn’t be too surprising.

Rogers, Day, and Reagan are all doing something different from their famous film personae, even if Reagan is leaning a little into his All-American tropes. Day and Rogers are particularly believable as sisters, and their relationship(s) with Cochran are haunting and difficult. If they had all been given more to do, this film would be an all-timer. As it stands, Storm Warning is walking in a political landmine, careful not to detonate anything too explosive, finding most of its fear in the frightening symbols and silhouettes of the terrorists it depicts.

VIDEO

Warner Bros. Pictures

The new 1080p transfer of a recent 4K scan looks best when serving Carl Guthrie’s black and white, dark and light, shadowy cinematography — most evident in the movie’s opening scenes. The quality is clear, with strong depth and plenty of natural grain. Warner Archive turns in another masterful upgrade.

AUDIO

Warner Archive’s DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio mix is without issue. Conversations are clear, music swells, and background noises stay in the background. English subtitles are available for the film, but not for the film’s extras.

SPECIAL FEATURES

Warner once again provides a hobbled-together Warner Night at the Movies, complete with clips and shorts you could’ve caught with the movie if you had seen it in theaters in 1951. Along with a theatrical trailer for the film, there’s One Who Came Back, an Academy Award-nominated docu-short about disabled American veterans, and Bunny Hugged, a Chuck Jones-directed Bugs Bunny cartoon.

OVERVIEW

Worth a discovery for those that haven’t seen it. Warner Archive makes those discoveries quite easy, presenting well-restored classics to proper glory on a regular basis.

Warner Archive generously provided Hotchka with the Blu-ray for reviewing purposes. The Blu-ray is available for purchase through Amazon. See the link in the comments section.

Storm Warning has a running time of 1 hour 33 minutes and is not rated.