Storm Warning is a 1950 film directed by Stuart Heisler.
Marsha Mitchell (Ginger Rogers) is a dress model who is accompanying a dress salesman on a sales tour. She gets off the bus overnight in the small town of Rocky Point to see her sister, Lucy (Doris Day). The people of Rocky Point are strangely hostile when she gets off the bus; a taxi driver refuses to give her a ride, and the night man at the bus station hurriedly checks her bag before he literally runs away.
Just moments after she checks her bag, Marsha is horrified to witness men wearing robes and hoods of the Ku Klux Klan pull a man out of the town jail. The Klansmen beat and then shoot the man, who turns a corner as he staggers away before collapsing and dying at Marsha's feet. A terrified Marsha eventually makes her way to Lucy's home, where she meets for the first time Lucy's new husband Hank—whom Marsha recognizes as one of the two Klansmen who didn't have a hood on.
Ronald Reagan stars as DA Burt Rainey, who has long wanted to make a case against the local KKK band but has never found anyone willing to testify. Until Marsha, that is.
Tropes:
- Chiaroscuro: The opening scene, in which Marsha gets off the bus only to almost immediately see a murder, afterwards running to the rec center where her sister works as a waitress. The scene is set at night, with scattered streetlights throwing dramatic shadows throughout as Marsha flees in terror.
- Curse Cut Short: Burt is leaving for the inquest, and the town fathers are there leaning hard on him to sweep things under the rug. Finally they tell him that if he goes through with the case it will be the end of his political career.Burt: Listen, I don't give a good—
Burt's mom: Burt! - Did I Mention It's Christmas?: It's Christmastime, with holiday advertisements up; Burt has a tree in his window. But the only relevance to the story is when the town fathers tell Burt that prosecuting the plan might hurt business during the Christmas shopping season.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Cliff, the dress salesman who is on the sales tour with Marsha. He asks her out for dinner again, only for her to remind him of three different cities where she turned him down, and then tell him "Cliff, in any league, three strikes are out."
- Early-Installment Weirdness: For most all of Doris Day's career she starred in light romantic comedies or musicals, usually in color, and she almost always sang. In this, one of her first big film parts, she appears in a gritty film noir and does not sing a note. (And this is the only film in Day's entire career in which her character is killed.)
- Extremely Short Timespan: 24 hours. Marsha gets off the bus at Rocky Point and witnesses a murder, the inquest for said murder is held the next afternoon, and that night she is kidnapped and taken to the KKK rally that is the scene of the violent climax.
- Face Framed in Shadow:
- Marsha's face is framed in shadow as she cowers in a doorway and watches Adams, the reporter, fall down and die at her feet.
- The faces of both Hank and his boss Charlie Barr are framed in shadow, as they duck into a side closet of the bowling alley and Hank tells Charlie that Marsha witnessed the crime.
- Girly Skirt Twirl: Lucy does this when showing off for her husband the dress that Marsha just gave her. It underlines her girlish innocence.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: When Marsha goes down to the court house basement because she's trying to find a way out past the crowd, Burt is there too, drinking after her perjury on the stand caused him to lose the case.
- Inelegant Blubbering: Frank, the night clerk at the bus station, breaks down in tears, sobbing to a disgusted Burt that he's too much of a coward to tell what he saw.
- Lingerie Scene: A drunk Hank gets back home and winds up peeping through the front window at Marsha in a slip as she's changing to leave. This leads directly to him trying to rape her.
- Pietà Plagiarism: Marsha, cradling Lucy's body at the end of the movie, after Lucy was shot by Hank.
- A Round of Drinks for the House: A pretty gross example, as Hank buys drinks for everyone at the rec center in delirious celebration, after Marsha's perjury means he's literally getting away with murder.
- Stealing from the Till: Charlie Barr has somehow managed to commit crimes that would piss even a Klansman off. Namely, he's been stealing Klan dues, which another Klansman warns him could make trouble with all the other racists.
- Town with a Dark Secret: The sleepy town of Rocky Point has a local chapter of the KKK which has apparently engaged in several murders. A wall of silence driven by fear has frustrated every effort of DA Rainey to file charges.
