No Way Out

Senseless racist irrationality destructively wallowing away, after an African American doctor (Sidney Poitier as Dr. Luther Brooks) attempts to save a life, and his truly sick patient passes.

The doctor just joined the profession having recently passed a requisite exam, and even though he's confident enough to make decisions, he still seeks guidance from established professionals. 

When his patient arrived the other night Dr. Brooks didn't have much time to make the call, Mr. Biddle (Dick Paxton as Johnny Biddle) had been shot during an attempted robbery, and was desperately clinging to life.

Dr. Brooks made a call nevertheless which the patient's brother attentively witnessed (Richard Widmark), after tormenting the humble doctor because he was born with black skin.

After the patient passed, another doctor appeared in the room (Stephen McNally as Dr. Dan Wharton), and Dr. Brooks honestly stated he was confident he made the right decision, but unfortunately could have been mistaken.

The volatile brother heard their conversation and reacted with racist venom, claiming his brother was killed due to incompetence while severely critiquing Dr. Brooks's race.

The only way Dr. Brooks can prove his innocence is to have an autopsy performed on the body, but the autopsy can't be performed without the consent of the surviving brother.

Not only does he refuse to give his consent, he also calls up his thuglike friends, and gets them to plan an attack on the local black neighbourhood, the situation becoming more and more insane.

And it's all because a bright student boldly determined he would become a doctor, and put in the necessary years of hard work and study to eventually attain the role.

Racism's disastrous stubborn ignorance almost prevents his career from moving forward, as someone too blind to see anything but skin colour goes out of his way to ruin a life.

Equal opportunity for every race and any individual willing to heed the call, objective analysis isn't qualified by a doctor's ethnicity as emergency medical decisions are made.

Even after Dr. Brooks proves his innocence Mr. Biddle refuses to believe, and with the resurgence of racism in the public sphere, the mass irresponsibility is most distressing. 

No Way Out highlights the pitfalls of racism with shocking language and blunt compression, I was surprised to see this film was made in 1950, I didn't think they made such candid movies back then (when dealing with sensitive issues).

Even though I think they're incredibly irresponsible I can support an individual's right to not be vaccinated, it's their body and even if they're being passionately foolish (remember how wonderful it was when they announced they'd found a vaccine! [with additional vaccines coming later!]) we live in a democracy not a totalitarian state.  

But if their protests start waving the confederate flag and they start preventing local businesses from operating, while irritating local residents, I simply cannot support them: I can't support freedom as it promotes slavery. 

Unknown

A brilliant doctor resilient and dependable arrives with his wife at a conference in Europe, the two looking forward to innovative discussions throughout the upcoming thought provoking week (Liam Neeson as Dr. Martin Harris and January Jones as Elizabeth Harris).

But Mr. Harris forgets a suitcase at the airport and must return with improvised haste, a random accident then suddenly sending his swift moving cab into the river.

He wakes in the hospital four days later confused and uncertain of his identity, flashbacking memories intermittently bombarding his worried bewildered forlorn consciousness. 

Enough memories are pieced together to locate his wife back at the hotel, but she's claiming another man is her husband (Aidan Quinn as Dr. Martin Harris), and he has the credentials to prove it.

Dr. Harris A has no supporting documentation and is alone in a foreign city, his only contacts the irritated cab driver (Diane Kruger as Gina) and an old school Stasi agent (Bruno Ganz as Ernst Jürgen).

But as they help him piece things together determined hitpeople come viciously calling.

His life hanging in the chaotic balance.

If he can determine which life is his own.

Identities ephemeral consistent mutating sculpted and warped through variable circumstances, sincere lighthearted earnest scenarios generating alternative fluid trajectories. 

In Dr. Harris's case, a traumatic shock engenders tumultuous transmutations, childlike innocence serendipitously resuscitated with headstrong free contradictory will.

As if latent wondrous ethical senses habitually reside within unobstructed awareness, a less reserved curious luminous syndication ethereally materialized through pneumonic flux.

Divergent associates proceed reflexively according to malleable regenerative factors, expectations foiled with animate nuance or transformatively adorned with newfound resonance. 

New sets of variables present cherished fascinations as inquisitive impulses react with the arts, ahistorical multilateral syntheses composing flexible dynamic spectrums.

Acquiring new knowledge leads to the reinterpretation of staple favourites convivially collected, the reinvigoration of personal relationships, intricate staunch identity.

Dr. Harris makes a go of it in Canada and Québec as so many adventurous people do.

Not that anything's written in stone.

Unknown wildly entertains throughout. 

Bunny Lake is Missing

The routine act of registering a child in school is scandalously uprooted when it's discovered she's disappeared.

Her mother (Carol Lynley as Ann Lake) is confused when she finds out she's vanished, her brother (Keir Dullea as Steven Lake) offering support as they search the school.

The police are swiftly notified and an eccentric detective (Laurence Olivier as Superintendent Newhouse) takes the case, whose critical observations extend well beyond strict diagnoses.

Details are routinely compiled as the case becomes more and more disconcerting, an enigmatic school mistress offering her take (Martita Hunt as Ada Ford), a creepy landlord (Noël Coward as Horacio Wilson) a shoulder to cry on.

Bunny's things are missing too even after having been dropped off that morning, and the school never received their payment, and there's no record of her having entered England.

Her mother searches for tactile evidence as her brother castigates the police, who go about their sleuthing while ignoring vain caprice.

Deep ends derailed demonstrative vital ascertained stitched clues, alas the story preordains constituents bemused.

How anyone could have fabricated such a story leads to reasonable thought?

Which proves that logic's sometimes absent when discerning carnal plot.

The cogent disbelieving wildly plead and then persist.

But proof cannot be found that one dear Bunny Lake exists.

In terms of character, writing, cinematography, and otherworldliness, Bunny Lake is Missing mesmerizingly impresses.

If you like odd expressive moderately successful characters it's an essential tour de force.

The superintendent has dismissive or laudatory or bored or incisive comments for everything, and he'd be as easy going as a studio musician if he weren't investigating crime.

And you could put up with him.

The school mistress shares unorthodox yet keen views which upset those unfamiliar with her style, but don't mistake her candour for tomfoolery as she clarifies.

The scenes where she interacts with Olivier are priceless uncut gems, striding forth with striking brilliance that resplendently descends.

Then there's creepy Horacio Wilson, the pervy landlord who I thought was the inspiration for Repulsion, after concluding that Bunny Lake inspired Rosemary's Baby, but Lake and Repulsion were both released in the same year (1965).

I didn't check the months.

It's like you have bored yet vigorous intellectuals occupying non-traditional roles devoutly concerned with solving a crime that's preposterously conventional.

The mystery certainly drives the plot but it still abounds with striking detail (bus drivers, junket [yeah yeah], Welsh poetry, the Zombies, tips, book writing), what would working life be like without conversation that doesn't necessarily relate to the topic at hand?

It's like consequent absurdity that's as flamboyant as it is concrete, that demands you take it seriously while taunting you for doing so.

Outstanding writing (John & Penelope Mortimer and Ira Levin [adapted screenplay]) and sincere cinematography (Denys N. Coop) complement Otto Preminger's direction.

It's a bit creepy yet still a must see.

Olivier's range is mind-boggling.