Storm Warning (1951)
One of the most fascinating boring movies I’ve seen in a long time. Doris Day, Ronald Reagan and Ginger Rogers, wow, but then it turns out be Steve Cochran that really turned my head. News flash -- Ginger Rogers is vastly underrated; Ronald Reagan isn’t. They said Ginger could do everything Astaire could do — only twice as well — well, she sure can act. Reagan is just tedious with an odd voice. Doris Day acquits herself well in her fist non-singing role. But Steve Cochran. Double wow. Now though Storm Warning is a film about the Ku Klux Klan, it does not take place in the deep south, nor is there a single black person in it, nor does it deal with racism. How exactly did that happen? Perhaps the present situation in the ‘land of the free’ can be explained somewhat by this film; three years after it was made the U.S. Supreme Court ordered desegregation of schools, and yet Hollywood was obviously too frightened to mention race. The now vilified Gone With the Wind at least shows the origins of the Ku Klux Klan (or at least one theory about it) and actually to some degree deals with racism, so it makes no sense to me that it should be universally cursed — whereas a film like this that ignores racism is scheduled with special pride on TCM. Storm Warning virtue signals in a way that would jollify the most avid COVID-19 devotee. Speaking of which, last weekend I was in Toronto and gay boys were walking the streets and holding hands, and a trio of quite unattractive men tried to pick me up in a patio bar. In other words, it was like old times. One of my ex-friends (he is what I would call a COVID-19 enthusiast) said, in reference to such debauches, on Facebook: “I’ll be laughing out of the other side of my face when you’re all dead.” I’m not sure in what universe a person like that could be considered to be anything but demented, but it’s certainly the result of living at a time when people have find no joy in anything but displaying how perfect they are. And most of this movie is kinda like that. One could, I suppose, watch it, and cheer -- when Ronald Reagan says to the gang of Klansmen whipping Ginger Rogers (yes, this is a very odd flic) “It’ll take more than those sheets you’re wearing to hide that you’re mean frightened little people!” Racists hold despicable views but this argument — called the ‘ad hominem argument’ is one in which — instead of taking issue with a person’s views, trashes the character of the person who embraces them. This is a favourite tactic of the COVID-adorers, those who hate-and-despise-people -who-don’t-wear-masks-and-don’t-socially-distance. In fact that is what COVID-19 is all about -- hating others because they are not good people like you. But never, before Storm Warning, have I ever seen the 'ad hominomen' argument taken to such a ridiculous extreme. This, ultimately, is the ‘storm warning' this film offers us: the writers spend so much time hating the persons who disagree with them, that they forget to discuss the issue at hand. Similarly, nobody talks about the actual issues involved with COVID-19 — i.e. what proportion of the world’s population will die, or what their health and age is, ‘herd immunity.’ or how COVID-19 operates in comparison to other similar diseases. No. Instead we talk about how bad people who don’t wear masks are. Yes you heard it here first — and this is not Trump’s argument that there are some 'nice people on both sides' — this is my argument: I am not a nice person and neither are you. And it is the act of judging other people, and putting yourself above others — saying that all members of the Ku Klux Klan are 'mean frightened people' — that you encourage the made up fallacy that the world is made up of either exclusively good people or exclusively bad people, and that you, by implication, are good, and those you disagree with, are bad. Maybe instead it’s time to look inside at your own heart — the human heart — and see what kind of treachery lies there? Which leads me to Steve Cochran’s penis. I think we all need a little relief, so let's try it on for size. Cochran (according to some reports) had a 12.4 inch penis (others said it was 14 inches). Mae West memorably intoned: “Joe was hung pretty well, but no more so than one of my boys, Steve Cochran. Talk about an appropriate last name. He should spell Cochran with a K.” That West called Cochran one of her ‘boys’ says a lot about -- a lot -- of him, and his list of Hollywood conquests is impressive: JOAN CRAWFORD, MAE WEST, IDA LUPINO, JAYNE MANSFIELD, MAMIE VAN DOREN, MERLE OBERON, YVONNE DeCARLO, KAY KENDALL, BARBARA PAYTON, and YVETTE VICKERS —- basically all the women he ever starred with. He didn’t need that equipment, as his dark, sultry eyes, the shock of black hair hanging loosely over his forehead, the furry chest, the lean muscled body, and his general mastery (I don’t like it in art, but I do like it in bed) did the trick, I’m sure, for so many. He died of a lung infection captaining a boat he had taken to the Caribbean, staffed by 3 Mexican women (ages 14, 19 and 25) who he hired to accompany him; the purpose of the trip was to scout locations for a planned film based on Errol Flynn’s yacht and it’s all female crew. But the moment in Storm Warning you really must see is when it suddenly turns into Streetcar Named Desire (and this film was released the same year as the film of Williams’ famous play). It all happens so quickly and comes so much out of nowhere that it takes you by surprise. Suddenly Cochran is trying to rape Ginger Rogers who is (wait for it) Doris Day’s older sister, and she says “I think you’re a stupid vicious ape!” which he is, of course, though it does not in any way diminish his brutal sex appeal. This moment is a sad reminder of what Tennessee Williams had and this movie does not -- a conspicuous lack of virtue signalling. Williams' plays are not moral lessons; we don’t know whether to love Blanche or hate her, all we know is she will die if by chance, some day, she eats an unwashed grape. And Stanley Kowalski is less evil than he is human, or rather more human than he is evil; and they are most decidedly not the same thing.
