Storm Warning *** (1951, Ginger Rogers, Ronald Reagan, Doris Day, Steve Cochran) – Classic Movie Review 7,302

Ginger Rogers stands up to the Ku Klux Klan as only she can, with Doris Day as her sister, in the 1951 film noir Storm Warning. Ronald Reagan plays a do-gooding District Attorney.

Steve Cochran and Ginger Rogers in Storm Warning (1951).

Director Stuart Heisler’s 1951 black and white film noir Storm Warning stars Ginger Rogers as Marsha Mitchell, a New York travelling dress model, who visits her sister Lucy Rice (Doris Day) in a US Southern town and discovers that Day’s husband Hank (Steve Cochran) is a murderous Ku Klux Klan member. Marsha witnesses a Ku Klux Klan murder and sets out to help bring the scum to justice.

Storm Warning is hot and sweaty and very watchable, with the stars on fine form, and with a compelling story and screenplay by Daniel Fuchs and Richard Brooks. It is a still relevant story on the themes of race hatred and bigotry.

Even Ronald Reagan, winner of the 1982 Razzie Worst Career Achievement Award, deserves his share of the plaudits as do-gooding District Attorney Burt Rainey. It is one of his tiny handful of good movies, which also include Dark Victory (1939), Knute Rockne All American (1940), Desperate Journey (1942), Kings Row (1942), The Hasty Heart (1949) and The Killers (1964).

[Spoiler alert] It is notable as the only one of her 40 movies where Day’s character dies. In 2018, it was 50 years since the last Doris Day movie – With Six You Get Eggroll. (She died on 13 May 2019, aged 97).

Also in the cast are Hugh Sanders, Raymond Greenleaf, Ned Glass, Lloyd Gough, Walter Baldwin, Lynne Whitney, Stuart Randall, Sean McClory, Paul E Burns, Robert Williams, Charles Watts, Charles Phillips and David McMahon.

Warner Bros wanted Lauren Bacall to star but she turned it down and preferred to go to Africa to accompany her husband Humphrey Bogart while filming The African Queen (1951). Warner Bros put her on suspension for her defiance.

The cast are Ginger Rogers as Marsha Mitchell, Ronald Reagan as Burt Rainey, Doris Day as Lucy Rice, Steve Cochran as Hank Rice, Lloyd Gough as Rummel, Hugh Sanders as Barr, Dale Van Sickel as the victim Walter Adams, Raymond Greenleaf, Ned Glass, Walter Baldwin, Lynne Whitney, Stuart Randall, Sean McClory, Paul E Burns, Robert Williams, Charles Watts, Charles Phillips and David McMahon.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7,302

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