It’s easy to dismiss Storm Warning in the 21st century. Now, we can retroactively assess the picture as a slick bit of pro-HUAC dogma. Here’s a picture that brazenly conflates a notorious militia of bigots with communists and their sympathizers. An easy way to read this film, simply, is that secretive groups who suggest behavior outside the American legal system are destined to destroy families and rip apart communities. Cue the dramatic closer, with a weeping woman clutching her dead sister in her arms as a burning cross falls to the ground.
There’s the rub, thought — an “easy way.” Storm Warning isn’t easy — nor should assessing it be a pat, open-and-shut case. To do so is to discredit the work of Daniel Fuchs, whose detesting of bigotry is the ideological core of the film — and who feared being accused as a communist, as well. Further, it’s to discredit the complexity of its lead, Ginger Rogers, whose own politics are often conflated 1:1 with her mother’s. Like Fuchs and Rogers, Storm Warning isn’t easy — easy to comprehend nor to reduce.
The picture follows Marsha Mitchell (Rogers,) a fashion model on the road to showcase a new line of clothing. On the way, she stops in Rock Point — Nowhere Town, USA — to check in on her dear baby sister, the newlywed Lucy (Day.) But just as soon as she gets to town, she’s confront with small town brutality on Main Street. A man is dragged — kicking and screaming — from a county jail into the streets. Against the odds, he manages to wriggle free and sprint away. But mid-stride — bang! The man is shot dead in broad moonlight, bleeding out into the shadows of the gutters. Mortified, Ginger watches from the shadows before she escapes.
It’s important to note that the murdered man is white. This is the start of Storm Warning‘s cognitive dissonance, especially when viewed today. Today, mainstream culture understands the KKK as an antiquated group of racists with white supremacist beliefs they’re willing to kill for. Through drama, comedy, horror, and every conceivable genre imaginable, post-70s cinema has thankfully sealed the cultural fate for the organization.
In the early ’50s, though, a segregated America couldn’t trade in the imagery of later depictions. Films rarely dealt with racism, and when they did, it certainly didn’t broach the topic of the KKK. In fact, it’s fair to say their most famous filmic depiction prior to this would have been Birth of a Nation, which more than exalted them. Confronting the group head-on was pretty unheard of for 1950’s Hollywood, in any capacity. However, that unfortunately necessitated concessions that weaken the film’s potential punch.
The KKK’s menace is abstracted here. To combat the organization aided in the intervening years by propaganda such The Traitor Within, Storm Warning speaks the language of communist paranoia. It was a more familiar threat to white America, and one they were undoubtedly more terrified of — irrational though that fear may have been. Therefore, it’s easy to see where efficacy of this film’s punch comes into play. It centers a respected actress (Rogers) and two up-and-comers (Reagan and Day) to deliver a public pop in the jaw to the group.
This is a respectful effort, and one worth applauding. Classic Warner Brothers had a history with pictures driven by social issues, whether it was the quintessential Casablanca or Pre-Code parables like Upperworld. For a time, it was a studio that — I believe — was partially defined by their boundary-pushing subject matter. To take on the KKK in public – in 1950 – was no small feat, and one of Daniel Fuchs’ stated goals.
Regardless of obfuscation, that goal gets accomplished here — the KKK is made out to be a collection of vile, bullish, and greedy criminals. In this, erm, fanciful interpretation of the group, they run the town of Rock Point ragged. They’re neighbors, friends, community pillars, and nobody wants to break solidarity with them — lest they face the consequences. But Burt Rainey (Reagan) is here to do his best Brando impersonation and get to the bottom of this downright anti-American, practically Communist (gasp!) gang. To do so, he’ll need Marsha’s help.
But will she squeal if it means ratting out dear baby sister’s husband — played by a greasy Steve Cochrane? Cochrane is fantastic as Hank, as he exudes the exact sort of sympathetic sliminess that cons gullible sweeties like Lucy. Marsha recognizes him as the dead man’s murderer right away, but keeps her mouth shut. Even when she reveals what she saw, though, Lucy refuses to budge. She doesn’t care that Hank is a member of the KKK. That he drinks too much, too often, or that he even murdered a man. After all, he swears it was an accident! He was just a little drunk, that’s all. He didn’t mean anything by it.
It all unfurls from there in a tragedy of errors. Ginger keeps her trap shut and destroys Ronnie’s case against the group. Emboldened, the group begins to act out in bigger, louder, more destructive ways. This all comes to a head when Hank — drunk, angry — isolates Marsha and tries to rape her in his own home. When Lucy comes in, she realizes that everything Marsha warned her about was — indeed — true. It all sets the stage for that inevitable downfall, the tragic ending hinted at in key art and promotional images. I won’t dissect the conclusion here — I’ll leave it for you — but it’s certainly sobering and unforgettable, plausibility be damned.
What can be made of a picture like Storm Warning, then? One thing is for certain — it’s still effective. The humanist subject matter could be shot as neat, tidy, and soulless as any other crime thriller that climaxes in a court sequence. Instead, Carl Guthrie’s camerawork susses out sinister shadows, highlights the brightest, flickering corners of dim rooms. A bowling alley packed with Klan sympathizers feels as hostile and unwelcoming as that alley your local crooks hang around, thanks to claustrophobic camerawork and expert shot blocking. Like his work in the same year’s Caged!, the shot composition here constricts and contracts — locking the audience right where Guthrie wants them.
But it’s Guthrie’s capture of the final setpiece that astounds. A hazy forest clearing at night, flooded with Klan hoods and their ill-begotten spawn. Marsha and Lucy are put on trial against a backdrop of uniform robes and a large burning cross. Each frame of this climax is lush, with a blanket of velvet darkness cut through by eerie and unnatural whites. This is the most impressive setpiece in Storm Warning, and Guthrie shoots it accordingly — with plenty of key shots of the cross as either background or foreground.
Director Stuart Heisler deserves mention, as his own oeuvre had a part in shaping the film. His 1944 The Negro Soldier was produced by Frank Capra, and was a propaganda film aimed at getting Black men to enlist in the US army. And while his Tulsa (1949) was not about the targeted racial genocide of 1921, it was a harrowing class drama set shortly after; based on his other work, there’s little doubt Heisler was aware of the massacre — provided he did his research. Point being, the intersection of marginalization, capital, and politics was a preoccupation for the director. As if to drive the point home, Heisler’s final film was a damning, sensationalistic takedown of Hitler.
Based on Fuchs and Heisler’s own dispositions, it feels hasty to dismiss Storm Warning as simple communist rabble-rousing. While it’s impossible to divorce Rogers, Day, and Reagan’s involvement in the HUAC, to let that color the intended read and social impact is classic “baby with the bathwater” scenario. Rogers, in particular, embodied a bizarre autonomy with her own conservatism; she was friends with some communists, so long as they were pro-America communists — even in the late ’50s — and would later work with directors challenged under the HUAC blacklist.
Further, Rogers was not a creative force on this film. Even with changes to Fuchs’ script during production, that is still the ideological DNA of Storm Warning. In kind, Heisler did what he could within the studio system to single out one of the most heinous hate groups in world history. If neither had made a stand, in any capacity, there is no telling when the next studio picture about the KKK would’ve been made. To judge the picture by its stars when most actors were conservatives feels hasty and — at worst — willfully obtuse.
That’s why Storm Warning is still a vital picture. Because for all its doublespeak and dog whistles, it is ultimately a very good film about extremism. How radical ideologies can seduce the greediest men, and how those ideologies are inherently corrupting and destructive. Ideologies that kill your wife, rape your sister, condemn your neighbor to die over pigmentation, upbringing, history. In 2024, a distressing number still embrace such an ideology.
Tell me, then — is there really no place for a "Storm Warning" against the rising threat of fascism?