The Lawless
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Lawless is a 1950 American film noir directed by Joseph Losey and features Macdonald Carey, Gail Russell and Johnny Sands.
A newspaper editor in California becomes concerned about the plight of the state's fruit pickers, mostly immigrants from Mexico. Film critic Thom Andersen identified The Lawless as one example of film gris, a more cynical variety of film noir with leftist themes. The film was also released as The Dividing Line.
Plot
California fruit picker Paul Rodriguez hopes to someday have a farm of his own. When his friend Lopo Chavez has a car accident, he is insulted with a racial slur by Joe Ferguson, a passenger in the other car.
Joe's father disapproves of this bigotry. Lopo visits his friend Sunny Garcia, whose family publishes a Spanish-language paper called La Luz.
At a dance, Sunny is introduced to Larry Wilder, editor of "The Union", who once was a big-city newspaper reporter. A racially heated fight breaks out at the dance. Paul accidentally strikes Peters, a policeman. Joe is also arrested. A reporter who works for Larry depicts the incident to a Stockton paper as a full-scale race riot. Reporter Jan Dawson arrives to pursue the story.
Peters roughs up Paul in the back seat of the police car. His partner tries to intervene but crashes the car and dies. Paul flees. A dragnet for him begins. It intensifies when a teen farm girl, Mildred, startled at seeing Paul, falls and is knocked unconscious, after which she blames Paul for what happened.
Larry tries to defend Paul in a newspaper article, inciting more anger. Lopo is attacked and a lynch mob for Paul is organized. The newspaper office is destroyed. Larry considers leaving town for good, but he is in love with Sunny, so they decide to merge their newspapers and continue to fight for what's right.
Cast
- Macdonald Carey as Larry Wilder
- Gail Russell as Sunny Garcia
- Johnny Sands as Joe Ferguson
- Lee Patrick as Jan Dawson
- John Hoyt as Ed Ferguson
- Lalo Rios as Paul Rodriguez
- Maurice Jara as Lopo Chavez
- Walter Reed as Jim Wilson
- Guy Anderson as Jonas Creel
- Argentina Brunetti as Mrs Rodriguez
- William Edmunds as Mr. Jensen
- Gloria Winters as Mildred Jensen
- John Davis as Harry Pawling
- Martha Hyer as Caroline Tyler
- Frank Fenton as Mr Prentiss
- Paul Harvey as Chief of Police Blake
- Felipe Turich as Mr. Rodriguez
- Ian MacDonald as Al Peters
- Noel Reyburn as Fred Jackson
- Tab Hunter as Frank O'Brien (Hunter's film debut)
- Russ Conway as Eldredge
- Robert Williams as Boswell
- James Bush as Anderson
- Julia Faye as Mrs. Jensen
