This was added to the Criterion Channel a while ago in a collection of Richard Widmark movies, and while he is very good in it (and gets top billing) the movie really belongs to Sidney Poitier, whose film debut it is. So it seemed fitting to watch it on the day he died. I can just imagine the director/co-writer Joseph Mankiewicz (Criterion Channel likes to bundle the same film in different "collections" and this is also in a Mankiewicz collection - no doubt they're frantically putting together a Poitier collection, too) casting the film and looking for the perfect Doctor Brooks, and finding Sidney Poitier.
You just wouldn't believe your luck. The film itself is a bit of a hard watch just because of the relentless racist slurs that Widmark (and even some overall sympathetic white characters) are called on to spew (apparently Widmark himself was so uncomfortable during the filming that he would apologize to Poitier after each take). Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's equal parts cutting-edge indictment of racism and clunky period-piece with cringey moments. However, it is elevated by the sheer class of several of those involved. Obviously, primary among these is Poitier, who is just a magnetic screen natural, oozing class and charisma all over the place (so much so that you wince when he is required to show deference to his white doctor mentor, played adequately enough by Stephen McNally), but Widmark is his usual reliably hateable self, well-stocked with his own very different brand of screen magnetism, and Makiewicz himself provides many memorably lines and images, most notably in the buildup to an almost-climactic race riot. We also get to see Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee in minor roles. Of the other white performers, Linda Darnell gets the most to do, and in general does very well with it. As so often with interesting actors in old movies that you come across and wonder why you haven't seen in more things, she has a tragic backstory, in this case dying in a house fire about 15 years later, while watching her own early film on TV(!)
Anyway, here's the basic plot. Poitier is Luther Brooks, who, at the start of the movie, has just passed his exam to be a doctor. He could move on somewhere else (he's attached to a hospital that, among other things, has to deal with wounded criminals when the cops call), and his family wants him to take a good offer to go off and join a practice, but he still isn't sure of himself and feels indebted to Dr. Dan Wharton. At any rate, for this night at least, he's on the jail beat and has to respond when the cops bring in the two Biddle brothers, both shot in the leg while holding up a liquor store. They are from a notorious black-hating poor-white part of town (the town is never specified) called Beaver Canal, and the older one, Ray (Widmark) is none-too-pleased to be in the hands of a black doctor. But Luther is more concerned with the other brother, Johnny (JOHNNY!), who was acting strangely before he was shot and is showing alarming symptoms. While Ray watches at first in anger and then in alarm,
Luther performs a spinal tap on Johnny, because he believes he's showing symptoms of a brain tumor. Alas, Johnny (JOHNNY!!) dies, and Ray blames Luther. Dr. Wharton backs Luther, but Luther would like an autopsy to see if he was right. But you have to get family permission to do one, and this Ray absolutely refuses to give. (Nor will the third Biddle brother, deaf-mute George, whose condition is key to more than one plot point.) However, Drs. Wharton and Booth discover that Johnny (JOHNNY!!!) had a wife, and track her down. She (Darnell as the now-reverted-to-her-maiden-name Edie Johnson) has escaped Beaver Canal, but is barely a few rungs up, working as a bellhop. She also refuses to help, not wanting anything more to do with the Biddles. However, after the Drs. have gone, she uses Wharton's card to gain access to Ray. Turns out that, despite her contempt for him, she and Ray had a thing going. Ray convinces her that there's something fishy about all this, and that she needs to round up the Beaver Canal gang to exact revenge for Johnny (JOHNNY!!!!). It is in this conversation that Ray even gets Edie saying the N-word.
And she does indeed go back to the old neighborhood and finds friends of the Biddles ready to form a mob and go looking for colored folk to beat up. She's clearly very conflicted, though, needing copious amounts of alcohol to get through it,
and even then, when she arrives at the mob rendezvous point (a junkyard) and sees all the rednecks trying out their various blunt instruments in preparation, she runs, appalled. But it turns out the colored part of town is not ignorant of all the impending shenanigans, and a corresponding black mob, led by "Lefty," the angry elevator-operator at Luther's hospital, are encircling the junkyard, ready to preemptively attack...
Edie shows up worse for wear at Wharton's house, where she is cared for her by his black housekeeper
and pretty much shamed into a change of heart. Meanwhile Wharton and Luther have to deal with the dead (which include Lefty, but not, thankfully, Luther's brother (Ossie Davis), despite his mother being happy to let him take part) and wounded. Luther is trying to save one of the white rioters when his mother breaks in and spits on him, and something in Luther snaps. He storms out, and the next thing Wharton knows, the following morning, Luther's wife has arrived at his house to inform him that Luther has confessed to Johnny's killing! Of course, it's a ruse to ensure that an autopsy is performed despite the family's objections, and, guess what? Luther's exonerated. All's well that ends well, right?
But wait, George helps Ray escape and they both show up at Edie's lodgings to punish her and enlist her help in luring Luther into a trap so Ray can kill him.
But all this exertion seems to have pulled out the stitches that Luther put in Ray's wounded leg, and he's not looking so good...
All in all, an auspicious launch to the Poitier career. But watch the film and you'll understand why Widmark felt so uncomfortable - he is effectively loathsome.
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