Like a fool, I’m always tinkering with the list of films I teach in the Film Noir course — making it doubly harder this term because I decided to do Neo-Noir too. I decided to include NO WAY OUT because it still packs a hefty punch, especially for a film from 1950. If you look at the packaging or the trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzsY1-GQ5WM) you’d think it was typical noir fare with Richard Widmark and Linda Darnell, but it’s really about Sidney Poitier’s character, Dr. Luther Brooks. Widmark is a racist hood, brought into the hospital with his brother who dies as Brooks works on him. He swears revenge and refuses to allow an autopsy to prove the doctor’s theory about his cause of death.

Vigorous use of the N-word mostly from Widmark, and a whole lot of casual racism throughout. The chief surgeon is a ‘I don’t see race’…