No Way Out

No Way Out is a 1950 American film noir crime drama film directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and starring Richard Widmark, Linda Darnell, Sidney Poitier, and Stephen McNally, who portrays a doctor tending to slum residents whose ethics are tested when confronted with racism, personified by Widmark as hateful robber Ray Biddle. No Way Out was controversial in its "graphic representation of racial violence" in what director Mankiewicz termed "the absolute blood and guts of Negro hating." The film marked the feature-acting debuts of Poitier and Mildred Joanne Smith. Mankiewicz and Lesser Samuels were also nominated for Best Story and Screenplay at the 23rd Academy Awards, losing to Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and D. M. Marshman Jr. for Sunset Boulevard. Plot Dr. Luther Brooks is the first African-American doctor at the urban county hospital where he trained. Despite assurances from his mentor, chief resident Dr. Dan Wharton, Brooks sometimes lacks confidence in his own skills. Brooks is working at the hospital's prison ward when Johnny and Ray Biddle, brothers who were both shot in the leg while attempting a robbery, are brought in for treatment. Johnny's symptoms, such as disorientation and dilated pupils, worry Luther. The bigoted Ray bombards Luther with racist slurs as he tries to treat them.