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IMDbPro

Storm Warning

  • 19511951
  • ApprovedApproved
  • 1h 33m
IMDb RATING
7.2/10
2K
YOUR RATING
Ronald Reagan, Ginger Rogers, and Steve Cochran in Storm Warning (1951)
Trailer for this black and white drama
Play trailer2:31
1 Video
25 Photos
CrimeDramaFilm-Noir
Marsha Mitchell, a traveling dress model, stops in a southern town to see her sister who has married a Ku Klux Klansman. Marsha sees the KKK commit a murder and helps District Attorney Burt ... Read allMarsha Mitchell, a traveling dress model, stops in a southern town to see her sister who has married a Ku Klux Klansman. Marsha sees the KKK commit a murder and helps District Attorney Burt Rainey in bringing the criminals to justice.Marsha Mitchell, a traveling dress model, stops in a southern town to see her sister who has married a Ku Klux Klansman. Marsha sees the KKK commit a murder and helps District Attorney Burt Rainey in bringing the criminals to justice.
IMDb RATING
7.2/10
2K
YOUR RATING
  • Director
    • Stuart Heisler
  • Writers
    • Daniel Fuchs
    • Richard Brooks
  • Stars
    • Ginger Rogers
    • Ronald Reagan
    • Doris Day
  • Director
    • Stuart Heisler
  • Writers
    • Daniel Fuchs
    • Richard Brooks
  • Stars
    • Ginger Rogers
    • Ronald Reagan
    • Doris Day
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 59User reviews
    • 16Critic reviews
  • See more at IMDbPro
  • Videos1

    Storm Warning
    Trailer 2:31
    Watch Storm Warning

    Photos25

    Ronald Reagan and Stuart Randall in Storm Warning (1951)
    Ronald Reagan and Stuart Randall in Storm Warning (1951)
    Doris Day, Ginger Rogers, and Steve Cochran in Storm Warning (1951)
    Doris Day, Ginger Rogers, and Steve Cochran in Storm Warning (1951)
    Ginger Rogers in Storm Warning (1951)
    Ginger Rogers in Storm Warning (1951)
    Ginger Rogers in Storm Warning (1951)
    Ginger Rogers in Storm Warning (1951)
    Ginger Rogers in Storm Warning (1951)
    Ronald Reagan and Hugh Sanders in Storm Warning (1951)
    Ginger Rogers and Steve Cochran in Storm Warning (1951)
    Doris Day, Ginger Rogers, and Steve Cochran in Storm Warning (1951)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Ginger Rogers
    Ginger Rogers
    • Marsha Mitchell
    Ronald Reagan
    Ronald Reagan
    • Burt Rainey
    Doris Day
    Doris Day
    • Lucy Rice
    Steve Cochran
    Steve Cochran
    • Hank Rice
    Hugh Sanders
    Hugh Sanders
    • Charlie Barr
    Lloyd Gough
    Lloyd Gough
    • Cliff Rummel
    Raymond Greenleaf
    Raymond Greenleaf
    • Faulkner
    Ned Glass
    Ned Glass
    • George Athens
    Paul E. Burns
    Paul E. Burns
    • Frank Hauser
    Walter Baldwin
    Walter Baldwin
    • Coroner Bledsoe
    Lynn Whitney
    • Cora Athens
    Stuart Randall
    Stuart Randall
    • Walt Walters
    Sean McClory
    Sean McClory
    • Shore
    John Alban
    • Reporter
    • (uncredited)
    Lillian Albertson
    Lillian Albertson
    • Mrs. Rainey
    • (uncredited)
    Fred Aldrich
    Fred Aldrich
    • Townsman on Courthouse Steps
    • (uncredited)
    Richard Anderson
    Richard Anderson
    • Interne
    • (uncredited)
    Walter Bacon
    • Jury Foreman
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Stuart Heisler
    • Writers
      • Daniel Fuchs
      • Richard Brooks
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Joan Crawford was asked by studio boss Jack L. Warner to play Doris Day's sister in the film. Crawford declined, saying, "Come on, Jack. No one would ever believe that I would have Doris Day for a sister!".
    • Goofs
      Ginger Roger's character gets whipped in the right shoulder during the whipping scene. After she is saved, she is seen rubbing her left shoulder as if it had been whipped.
    • Quotes

      Burt Rainey: Just wearing that hood doesn't change your voice, Walker. Am I supposed to be afraid of you because your face is covered up? It'll take more than these sheets you're wearing to hide the fact that you're mean, frightened little people, or you wouldn't be here, desecrating the cross.

      Charlie Barr: In the name of the imperial Klan...

      Burt Rainey: Don't give me that Halloween routine.

    • Connections
      Featured in Biography: Doris Day: It's Magic (1998)
    • Soundtracks
      Kiss Me Sweet
      (uncredited)

      Music by Milton Drake

      Played when Marsha first goes to the recreation center

    User reviews59

    Review
    Review
    Featured review
    7/10
    KKK and looking the other way made real, but not pushing hard enough at all
    Storm Warning (1951)

    An anti-KKK film that doesn't mention blacks or Jews or other persecuted groups. Instead, the victim is a journalist who we assume was uncovering those crimes. The drama is high, the filming dramatic with lots of night stuff (some of it daringly dark), and the leading actors very good.

    The star here is Ginger Rogers, and she pulls off a subtle job of being both a very strong woman and an average American unwilling to stick her neck out. In a way, that's the one main point of the movie--that the KKK continues in little towns in mid-century America because regular people who are normally models of fortitude decide to just look the other way.

    Doris Day and Ronald Reagan, both archetypes of some kind of social conservatism later in their careers, play ordinary folk here. Day is the wimpy sister who happens to be married to a lousy klan bruiser. She plays the weak American, you might say, who protects her man even when he's obviously murderous. Reagan is the easy going prosecutor--and he's easy going in the way he'd later be the easy going president. He gets things done by slowly and cheerfully persisting.

    Director Stuart Heisler made a number of hard edged movies in his career, including one of my favorites, "The Glass Key." But, as in many of these others, he goes for style over substance here. You might say the American public wasn't ready to face their ambivalence over the KKK head on, and that the studios skirted the issue and were brave for bringing it up at all. Well, reviews from the period say otherwise. They call the movie wimpy and elusive, and it is.

    What you do get is a series of really good but really familiar situations where the KKK members coerce and force the regular townspeople into going along with their evil ways. There is no mention at all of the what the KKK was against, or the racism that was at the heart of the issue nationally. There are, to be sure, several black actors as extras in a couple of scenes, but this is hardly relevant except to say that the opportunity was there to push the issue much harder, much harder. Even Warner Bros. own "Black Legion" from 1937 (and starring Humphrey Bogart) was better at making the issues pertinent. "The Intruder" from 1962 (and starring William Shatner) is better at getting to the point despite its low budget, and maybe shows how the country was dealing with the issue more openly by then.

    "Storm Warning" is so well made and filled with great scenes--both the small town settings and the wild KKK meeting in the woods--it's worth seeing. And the opening ten minutes is so creepy it will really make you perk up. They say Rogers is miscast here, but I think she was supposed to be the sophisticated outsider who might, in fact, stand up for justice. And then she doesn't. See it.
    helpful•4
    1
    • secondtake
    • Sep 8, 2013

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • February 10, 1951 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Storm Center
    • Filming locations
      • Corona, California, USA
    • Production company
      • Warner Bros.
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 33 minutes
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.37 : 1

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