STORM WARNING

US, 1951, 93 minutes, Black and white.
Ginger Rogers, Ronald Reagan, Doris Day, Steve Cochrane.
Directed by Stuart Heisler.

In retrospect, Storm Warning is a very interesting film. It was produced during the unAmerican activities witch hunts for communists as well as the period of the black list. Instead of focusing on communists, this screenplay (written by Richard Brooks who had already written Crossfire and was about to become a director, including versions of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Summer and Smoke and In Cold Blood). The film was directed by Stuart Heisler who had directed a number of interesting films in the 1940s and was to direct The Star, I Died a Thousand Times.

Ginger Rogers portrays a model visiting a southern town to see her sister, played by Doris Day in a non-singing role. She is married to a member of the Ku Klux Klan, Steve Cochrane. Ronald Reagan portrays the local district attorney. When the model sees a murder committed, she collaborates with the DA to bring the killers to justice. In the process, the film unmasks the members of the Klan, their bigoted attitudes, as well as their violence. The Klan had been the subject of a number of films – favourably in D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, unfavourably in Otto Preminger’s The Cardinal as well as Costa-Gavras’? 1988 film, Betrayal.

The film is interesting in a 1950s perspective on the Ku Klux Klan and its activities as well as its moral and political stances.

1. The meaning of the title? Its reference to the people? to the United States? Audience expectations? The use of clouds during the credits?

2. The style of the film of the 40s and 50s? Black and white photography?

3. Thriller structure and techniques? Type structure and characterisation? How effective? The exploration of such themes in 1950? The portrayal of America? American feeling and patriotism, social comment, abuses in the south? The use of prominent film stare for such a message film? Its impact then, now?

4. How well did the film balance the plot and the message? The effect of seeing Ginger Rogers whipped. Doris Day shot?

5. Consider the film as a piece of Americana: the social observation of people, towns. structures; a picture of the south; American politics and law and order; the abuse of the Klu Klux Klan; popular frenzy and hysteria; social injustice? How well explored and presented were these issues?

6. The Klan? Our first seeing it in action, the explanation of its organisation and purpose, its seeing issues in black and white, white supremacy over blacks, the background deals of swindles and the use of money? The Klan seeing itself as doing good? Did it do any good? Its disruptive hold in the town? Cruelty? The pressures for loyalty? The rights, the dress, the violence?

7. Comment on the use of the structure of an outsider visiting a town, the tight organisation, viewing a murder and being puzzled, being affected by the issues, affecting the issues and then leaving. How did the audience share this particular point of view?

8. The importance of Marsha as the central character? Audience identification with her as the outsider, observing the situation, the emotional involvement, the fears? Marsha presented in the bus, the job, family life? As a weak and ordinary person, frightened? Her reaction to the murder? To her family and Hank? Her wanting to help yet being afraid? Being pressurised by the family? The pressure by Rainey? Her withholding evidence, the inquest? Her self-disgust and people’s congratulations? The brutality of Hank? The brutality of the Klan and her being whipped? Seeing her sister shot? Audience identifying with this characters?a sophisticated New Yorker in the south? How would she stand for most people’s reactions?

9. Audience identification with Lucy and her ordinariness? Her home life, marriage, looking forward to a baby? Gradual disillusionment and fear? The fact that she was shot? Thematically? Dramatically?

10.How fair was the portrayal of Hank? His participation in the murder, his brutality? Pity for him and disgust? A yes man? Easily intimidated by both sides? His final cruelty? His attack on Marsha? How typical was he of the type of man that the Klan attracted?

11.The contrast with Rainey and his fight ofr law and order? His goals? The frustrations of collecting evidence and stacked courts?

12. The presentation of the Klan people, pressure on jobs and families, on the courts? The presumption that they would get off scott free?

13.The presentation of the trial? Mrs Adams? The hysteria of the people?

14.How valid were the judgments made on this kind of society? How important that films should be made on organisations such an the Klu Klux Klan?