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22 out of 24 people found the following comment useful :-
Solid entertainment. Can't wait for the DVD!, 28 October 2005
7/10
Author: ccthemovieman-1 from Lockport, NY, United States

I heard a rumor that this was coming out on DVD in 2006. I hope it's true because this is a fascinating film. Actually, "shocking" might be a better word.

Bigotry is the main theme and there is no beating around the bush here. The "n- word" is used at least 20 times in this film in one form or another which is shocking to hear in a classic film. Richard Widmark plays the main bigot and he is fascinating to watch. Few people in his day could play the wild-eyed fanatical villain as well as he could (see "Kiss Of Death" for the best example).

This was Sidney Poiteir's screen debut and he looks about 16 years old! He looks too young to be a doctor even if he is portrayed as someone in their first year of practice. Anyway, with Widmark and Poitier, and a fine supporting cast with some famous names, you have a very, very interesting movie that is long overdue to be made available to the public.

To the film's credit, this shows bigotry on both sides: black and white, although it concentrates more on white against black. Linda Darnell plays perhaps the most interesting role because she is the one person who switches back and forth, unable most of the time to figure out what side to take! For those who remember the Naked City TV series, it's also fun to see Harry Bellaver in here, playing Widmark's deaf-mute brother.

This movie could easily be very dated.....but it isn't.

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22 out of 26 people found the following comment useful :-
Refreshingly uncool - Poitier and Widmark at their very best!, 23 July 2003
Author: manuel-pestalozzi from Zurich, Switzerland

I watched this film soon after having seen the dreadfully stupid (but almost universally praised) American History X. The comparison does not make you very optimistic as far as the development of movies with a social message is concerned.

No Way Out is a very good story about racism - maybe the best ever told on screen. It is mainly set in a hospital, where black and white doctors and nurses - among other things - patch up people who bashed each other's heads in in race riots. Sidney Poitier is a very young, upwardly mobile doctor with high ethic standards, Richard Widmark a nasty, racist piece of "white trash" from Beaver Canal who accuses the black doctor of having killed his brother while under his care. This sounds pretty plain, but the screenplay succeeds in giving the characters real personal traits, and the actors fully live up to their task.

I have never seen Sidney Poitier better than here - and this apparently was his first screen appearance! The young doctor is, on the one hand, angry because of the racially motivated humiliations he has to endure. On the other hand, the accusations of the white bigot really shake him badly. He is having serious doubts about his abilities as a doctor because of it, although he is sure he did the right thing. In my opinion it was very wise to introduce these self doubts which are not race related. It makes of Poitier's character a well intentioned conscientious individual many people without regard of race (or gender or religion or whatever) can relate to.

Richard Widmark as the black doctor's racist adversary gives an equally brilliant performance. We see him here at his slimiest, meanest. He really is pure hate - yet even his character is more than a stereotype. His hate is propelled by an encompassing self pity which is really nauseating! This becomes most evident in the dramatic final scene. "Little Black Simba!", he shouts again and again to the black doctor like a moron, and the stupid taunting gets more and more pathetic. Then, badly wounded, he dissolves into a whimpering bundle and the viewer comes to the conclusion that the worst punishment for that creature consists in just staying alive!

It is my opinion that the ever more persistent culture of coolness will not make the world a better or more desirable place to live in. Therefore I really was delighted to see that No Way Out is refreshingly uncool. It addresses social and philosophical issues in a down to earth way. Unforgettable to me is the conversation between the girl from Beaver Canal, the racist's brother's former wife, and the black servant of a white doctor, the boss of Sidney Poitier's character. The servant tells the girl that in her free time she likes to invite friends and cook elaborate meals for them. That is a lot of work you're doing in your free time, the girl remarks. To this the servant says: I like doing it, and it makes me feel I am somebody. Outdated? Corny? What do I care! The statement is still valid.

It should be noted that No Way Out is not a story of different groups of people pitted against each other but a story about individuals who have to find themselves in society and decide what stand they are taking towards civilisation. The movie states that civilisation and civilised behavior is not something you can take for granted and that it depends on the choice of every single human being.

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16 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
Intelligent, Groundbreaking Film, 20 March 2005
8/10
Author: dragoneyez01 from USA

After watching this film on television a couple weeks ago (TMC is the best), I was surprised how obscure 'No Way Out' really is. However, I wasn't exactly surprised.

The film follows Dr. Brooks (Sidney Poitier), an ER doctor whose first real-world experience is as intern in the prison ward of a New York hospital. While on duty, the brothers Biddle (the older of which is played by Richard Widmark), come in following a confrontation with the police. Both suffer from superficial injuries, but the younger brother's health is declining rapidly due to what Brooks diagnoses as a brain tumor. The kid dies while Brooks is operating, feet away from his brother. The racist Ray Biddle soon accuses Brooks of murder, but won't allow an autopsy to be conducted on his brother to determine the cause of death.

Poitier turns in a great performance as the hard-working young doctor, who is debased by the hollow accusations of a bigot. They dig at his core and bring up insecurities that would be common to anyone in the medical field, but are aggravated by the pure hatred of Widmark's equally well-played character.

While the script borders on stereotypes at times, you have to remember that these stereotypes were very real during the time it was written. The writer does a fantastic job of adding depth, personality, beyond the paper figures. Brooks is a practical man, who supports his family and tries to not let the circumstances bring him down. Behind the veneer of hatred, Biddle is a deeply insecure and misguided man who has let circumstance blacken his core. Mankiewicz and Samuels do an amazing job at bringing life to a situation that was taboo for the time.

Aside from the competent acting and well-executed script, the film featured a moving and well-choreographed race riot that fully captures the raw hatred that can surface between groups of people who face the same everyday problems and circumstances, but are torn by one difference (color, or creed, or religion).

This is definitely a film well worth seeing. For its time, the movie was groundbreaking for its portrayal of both racists and their victims. While today the movie may seem tame, it undoubtedly struck some sensitive nerves during its release. The film deserves to be more widely known, if only for its content.

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17 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
An Early Poitier Classic, 9 September 2004
8/10
Author: Terence Allen from Atlanta, Georgia

This movie, even today, stands out as one of the best, and most honest of Hollywood films dealing racism and prejudice. Good friends Poitier and Widmark are anything but as they play, respectively, a hospital intern and a racist hoodlum. The scenes between them are can be hard to watch because of the raw, uncensored for the time slurs spouted by Widmark at Poitier. Widmark is not redeemed at the end, nor is the subject of racism mollycoddled. It is a tribute to this film that its' existence bear witness to the fact that Hollywood has long been capable of portraying some of life's most unpleasant realities. This film is a bright spot on the resumes of all involved, particularly Poitier, who plays someone who is human more than noble, and Widmark, who puts a realistic face on raw, naked bigotry.

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15 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
Tense Racial Drama, 2 November 1998
7/10
Author: Tony Caroselli from Bloomington, IN

Although "No Way Out" looks a little dated in comparison to more recent racial dramas, such as "Mississippi Burning," "No Way Out" is still a very tense DRAMA. Poitier (in his first film role) gives a truly break-out performance, but it's Widmark who really steals the show. The riot scenes are beautifully choreographed, lending serious mood to the action.

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13 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
A still powerful race-conflict melodrama, 28 June 2002
Author: (som1950@hotmail.com) from San Francisco

As in other 1950s films, Richard Widmark is very scary and Sidney Poitier very noble herein. There is little preaching in Mankiewicz's screenplay and it has splendidly filmed action sequences. The rap that Mankiewicz's films are "all talk and no action" is untenable (see, especially, "The Quiet Man" and "Five Fingers"), though the talk he wrote was often very incisive and very witty.

Notable for the debuts of Poitier, Ossie Davis, and Ruby Dee, this melodrama is of more than historical interest. It is a gripping, noirish tale of a nightmare experienced by a young black doctor. Although the ending is predictable, and Linda Darnell's character chances unconvincingly often and unconvincingly far (and her clothes are inconceivable for a drive-in car hop!), "No Way Out" is more than a historical curiosity. (And Mankiewicz deserves reconsideration as one of the directors who really was the author of the films he directed, up there with Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges.)

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15 out of 17 people found the following comment useful :-
Wow, what a knockout, 4 March 2005
Author: Ripshin from North Carolina

This film really surprised me, as I wasn't expecting something so raw and tense from 1950. The leads are excellent - nobody chews the scenery, as would be expected. Darnell is particularly effective. Honestly, being the cynical person I am, I never would have expected such an excellent film.

How this made it past the Code, I'll never know. The language and drama are intense. 1950?????? Amazing. What a pleasure to see Ossie in an early role...he's already missed.

Frankly, I rarely recommend a film. What a great experience....check this flick out.

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16 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :-
Linda Darnell Deserved Best Supporting Actress Nod, 30 August 2005
10/10
Author: ELSPENCE from Brooklyn, NY

A lot has been praise has been deservedly given on this site to Sidney Poitier and Richard Widmark. I'd just like to give a few words of praise to Linda Darnell. She was an actress--usually dismissed as "ornamental" or "decorative"--who really did show little range in her Hollywood career, much of which was past her by the time she did this in 1950. Various sources give her birthdate as either 1921 or 1923, but whatever the case, she had been acting in movies since she was a teenager. Here--at either age 27 or 29--she gives a moving, sincere, deglamorized portrait of a confused woman. At first she wants to do right, then she does wrong by fomenting a race riot, then--realizing her mistake--tries to set things right again. And does it.

I think that she probably represents the average viewer of the period who did not quite know what to do about racial issues (as if we do today). Not naturally racist, she gives into Widmark after he wickedly questions her about views on blacks, making her turn to what she had probably always been taught.

Had Darnell been given the chance to give any more performances like this, she would probably have had a longer, more substantial career.

Why the Academy didn't notice her is a mystery, especially after giving a Best Supporting Actress nomination to Nancy (WHO?) Olson in the same year.

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12 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
shocking -- then and now., 22 April 2005
8/10
Author: Robert J. Maxwell (rmax304823@yahoo.com) from Deming, New Mexico

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Cut up in various states including Pennsylvania, banned in the South for years, it's hard to see how this movie managed to be made. I'm not even sure they could do it now in our oh-so-sophisticated new century. The "N" word became taboo after it played such a prominent part in the O. J. Simpson trial. And the other racist name calling we would I think find equally offensive. "Sambo"? And others that aren't "obscene" by any dictionary definition but which people still wouldn't feel comfortable reading here.

Skipping over much of the plot -- Poitier is a doctor accused by Widmark of deliberately killing Widmark's brother -- the acting is fine on everyone's part. Poitier was one of the best dramatic actors of his generation. Widmark gives a performance that slides from paranoid wariness to hysterical hatred. There's never a moment when he doesn't seem ready to pop like a zit. Linda Darnell has never impressed me much as an actress, although she was a nicely virginal teenager in "The Mark of Zorro," but she delivers the goods here as a mature and embittered woman. The supporting players are all stalwart. Many of the faces are familiar. Even Jack Kruschen has a few seconds on screen.

If there's a weakness in the film it's the battle in the junkyard. It's well staged but overdone, with rabid white racists slamming bicycle chains against stoves, eyes bulging, shrieking racial epithets. We really didn't need it. The drama is in the interaction between the characters.

But that's minor. It's a well-done and courageous movie. The screenplay is brave enough to keep the African-American community within the bounds of human possibilities. They aren't saints. Poitier's grandma clearly hates whites. The black actors don't all look like fashion models, and the men stage what now would be called a "preemptive" attack on white bigots who have not yet done what they've planned to do. In the end, it's sensible enough to encourage our sympathy towards Widmark's insane and suffering racist criminal. Widmark winds up crumpled on the floor, bleeding and weeping abjectly from a mixture of hopelessness and self pity.

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12 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
still effective, 15 October 2001
7/10
Author: Robert D. Ruplenas

A very effective and engrossing racial drama, with standout performances by Sidney Poitier and Richard Widmark. Widmark, in particular, tears up the screen with his harrowing portrayal of a pathologically obsessed racist; he is almost frightening to watch. The script keeps the action moving along briskly, in edge-of-the seat mode. Still effective, for a film half-a-century old.

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