Film Culture (1956)

STORM CENTER STORM CENTER. Directed by Daniel Taradash; story and sereen play by Daniel Taradash and Elick Moll; photographed by Burnett Guffey, AS.C.; music, George Duning; edited by W. A. Lyon; produced by Julian Blaustein for Phoenix Productions; distributed by Columbia Pictures. In the cast: Bette Davis, Brian Keith, Kim Hunter, Paul Kelly, Kevin Coughlin, Joe Mantell, Sallie Brophy, and others. When Sigmund Freud was told that his books were being burned by the Nazis, he remarked calmly, ‘Times are progressing. In the Middle Ages they would have put’me to the stake. Today, they burn my books instead.” The times are progressing indeed, if we may take as an example of that progress the film Storm Center. While its explosive theme could not have been brought to the screen in the cautious and inflammable years of McCarthyism, it yet serves to evoke the tragic mood of conformism, fear and suspicion that prevails even after the decline of a certain political temper. In this sense, the film is controversial; it was bound to arouse the passions of those self-appointed custodians of public morality such as the Legion of Decency. In anticipation, perhaps, of a McCarthyite protest, the Legion has charged the film with distortion, labelled it “propaganda’”’ and affixed to it its own particular seal of disapproval. The Legion’s concern with keeping peace among all should be commendable to some even at the price of an unjust rating; however, the conclusion remains that the propaganda label applied to Storm Center not only bears evidence of heavy and irrational bias, but also that it reflects the gravity and reality of the issues the film brings forward. Far from being propaganda, i.e., a politically controlled and deliberately exaggerated theme, Storm Center is indeed a sincere plea for freedom and dignity of expression and a firm defense of the nation’s cultural inheritance. The consequences of hysteria and intolerance have been creatively realized by Daniel Taradash, the director, and his collaborator, Elick Moll. Theirs is a courageous effort and it has won the recognition and approval of no less an organization than the Daughters of the American Revolution—a group not usually known for its promotion of civil liberties. The film does well by presenting an issue of scope and ramification in the microcosm of a small American town. A quiet and dignified librarian is one day confronted with the problem of whether or not to remove from the shelves of the public library a piece of Communist literature. A deal between her and the city fathers is initially agreed upon: the book will be withdrawn from circulation and, in consideration of this, the building of a new children’s wing for the library will be favorably voted upon and passed. Thus, from the start, the film conveys the impression that the whole affair is being conducted as a cynical business transaction to appease certain citizens who have protested, and to keep “‘out of trouble in troubled times.’’ Ethics envers when the librarian refuses to comply and becomes a symbol of firm belief against the forces of opportunism, fear and political exploitation. Events multiply into a crescendo: dismissal, ostracism from the community, hostility from the children whom the librarian had been striving to educate in Libertarian principles. One of these children provides the climax; he turns on tne librarian and at night sets fire to the library, consigning to a mighty auto-da-fé the entire collection of Dante, Voltaire, Shakespeare, Milton and Kant. This shocks the citizens into a reversal; they ask to be forgiven. But the librarian is adamant: “I have no intention of leaying. I’m partly responsible for this. I didn’t fight back as my friends wanted, and as I should have done. Now I'm going to stay and rebuild the library if I have to do it with my bare hands. And if anybody ever again tries to remove a book from it, he will have to do it over my dead body.” The ending is left deliberately ambivalent; the library will be rebuilt but the question arises whether the lesson that has been taught has been permanently learnt. The issue of moral disinfection 1s, for the film’s townspeople, left unresolved. Taradash has displayed an ability to deal thoughtfully with human nuances in his screenplay for From Here to Eternity; here, as director, his expression is a completed one and his achievement is estimable. The cinematic narration is robust, simple, and to the point. He emerges as perhaps the most promising of a crop of new directors (Kramer, Laughton, Ferrer, etc.) although a great part of his accomplishment must be credited to the audacity of his and Moll’s screenplay. The fresh camera work of Burnett McGuffey (who shot From Here to Eternity) enhances the reality of an actual locale—Santa Rosa, California—and the presence of several of Santa Rosa’s citizens does much to heighten the film’s immediacy. In the main role, Bette Davis is wholly impressive and reconfirms her position as the American cinema’s best actress. Some critics have spoken their dissatisfaction over the character of the librarian. If, they say, she had not been such an honored and respected teacher of long standing in the community, she would not have been accorded the final popular sympathy. But it is precisely the point that this quiet and esteemed woman should suddenly find herself the center of a great vacuum of hysteria and bad will. It is not a sentimental allegiance to her that brings the townspeople to realization, but an overriding sense of guilt for having betrayed their common belief in the principles of a community and a nation—a belief for which she alone had the courage to suffer. The burning of the library is proof that ‘‘something” has happened; it is the kind of crisis capable of stirring the minds of the people. And its correlation to the Salem witch trials in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and the lynchings in Wellman’s The Ox-Bow Incident is more than evident. Where we had physical death, we now have the kind of progress, to refer once again to Freud, that results in social death. From the ashes of the burning library springs a sense of re-evaluation and justice; this is the film’s message and the conception of the heroine must be seen in its proper perspective. N 1)