No Way Out

Issue-driven but dramatic enough and making political points that still resonate, No Way Out is a film about racism and stars Sidney Poitier in his first major role. He’s 22 and his self-assurance is both remarkable and one of the key selling points of director Joseph L Mankiewicz’s film. Poitier plays Dr Luther Brooks, a black doctor in a very white hospital where – as Mankiewicz and co-writers Lesser Samuels and Philip Yordan’s go to great pains to show – Brooks is treated as an absolute equal by his fellow doctors. In particular Dr Dan Wharton (Stephen McNally) and hospital administrator Dr Sam Moreland (Stanley Ridges). Don’t be fooled, black lift operator and … Read more