Two hoodlum brothers are brought into a hospital for gunshot wounds, and when one of them dies the other accuses their black doctor of murder.
The Biddle brothers, shot while robbing a gas station, are taken to the prison ward of the County Hospital; Ray Biddle, a rabid racist, wants no treatment from black resident Dr. Luther Brooks. When brother John dies while Luther tries to save him, Ray is certain it's murder and becomes obsessed with vengeance and the situation slides rapidly toward violence.—Rod Crawford <[email protected]>
Luther Brooks, a black man, has just passed his Board exams to become a certified doctor. Rather than work under a black doctor as his family expects, Dr. Brooks decides to stay at County Hospital where he did his internship to do his junior residency under his mentor, Dr. Dan Wharton, a white man, the most supportive person in authority he has ever known. Dr. Brooks wants to continue working under Dr. Wharton if only because he is still somewhat unsure of his abilities despite being at the top of his class and having the full confidence of Dr. Wharton. His first assignment is working as the head of the prison ward, where criminal brothers, Johnny and Ray Biddle, are brought in, both shot in the leg after a botched robbery. Upon a quick examination and obtaining some information about Johnny, Dr. Brooks believes that the gunshot wound is only secondary to Johnny's bigger problem of a previously undiagnosed brain tumor. Alone in the room with Ray and Johnny, Dr. Brooks conducts a spinal tap on Johnny to confirm his diagnosis, during which Johnny dies. An unabashed racist, Ray accuses Dr. Brooks of purposefully killing Johnny. Dr. Brooks wants to have an autopsy conducted on Johnny to confirm his diagnosis and that he did not kill Johnny, something that requires family consent, which Ray or any of the the other Biddles is unwilling to provide if only not to cooperate with anything that would help Dr. Brooks. When news of what happened between Dr. Brooks and Johnny gets back to Johnny and Ray's primarily white, lower class, crime ridden and racist neighborhood of Beaver Canal, another full out race riot seems a real possibility. Other such riots are still fresh on the minds of many in the black community, such as with Lefty, an elevator operator at the hospital who sports a facial scar and whose sister is permanently wheelchair-bound from a previous riot. Caught between the two worlds is Edie Johnson, Johnny's ex-wife who too has deep seated racist views if only because of her background, yet hates the Biddles and what they represent. Beyond the issue of the autopsy, Ray is determined to ruin the life of Dr. Brooks, not because of Johnny's death but because he is an upwardly mobile black man.—Huggo
When the thieves Ray Biddle and his brother Johnny Biddle are brought to the prison wing of the City Hospital shot in the leg by a police officer, the black intern Dr. Luther Brooks is assigned by Dr. Dan Wharton to treat them. Dr. Brooks is insulted by the racist Ray and finds Johnny completely disoriented. Suspecting of a brain tumor, he begins a procedure but Johnny dies. The racist Ray accuses him of killing his brother and does not authorize the autopsy to confirm Dr. Brooks' diagnosis. Dr. Wharton and Brooks decide to seek out Johnny's widow Edie Johnson to get the authorization but she explains that they had divorced. Edie visits Ray to ask him to authorize the autopsy, but he convinces her to organize an attack of the black sector with the lowlife people from Beaver Canal. After the riot with many casualties, Dr. Brooks takes the ultimate decision to have the requested autopsy.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Although he successfully earns a license to practice, black physician Dr. Luther Brooks (Sidney Poitier) remains uncertain of himself and chooses to prolong his residency as an intern at the county hospital. Assigned to the prison ward, it's there that he's tasked with caring for white racist criminals Ray Biddle (Richard Widmark) and his brother Johnny after they're shot while robbing a gas station. Dr. Brooks manages to remain professional as the brothers discharge their toxic prejudices. Johnny dies in Brooks' care and orders an autopsy to confirm his chosen protocol but brother Ray refuses and manipulates Johnny's ex-wife (Linda Darnell) into calling on their neighborhood gang to sack the black community. With a race war on the horizon, Dr. Brooks launches a plan to prove his innocence in hopes of diffusing the violence.—Mae Moreno
Sidney Poitier is making his feature film debut as Dr. Luther Brooks, the first African-American doctor at the nonspecific urban county hospital where he trained. Brooks sometimes lacks confidence in his own skills, but he's got the confidence of his mentor, Dr. Dan Wharton, played by Stephen McNally. On his first night, Brooks is assigned to the hospital's prison ward when Johnny and Ray Biddle, brothers who were each shot in the leg while attempting a robbery, are brought in for treatment. A police officer explains how they were captured, and between that and Ray's description of what happened, Brooks is a little worried about Johnny's symptoms. Ray, who is a huge racist played by Richard Widmark, hammers Luther with racist slurs while he tries to treat the both of them.
Brooks is concerned that Johnny has a brain tumor, so he administers a spinal tap, but Johnny dies during the procedure. Ray, who believes that Johnny was only suffering from a gunshot to the leg, accuses Luther of killing him, and promises revenge. Shortly thereafter, Brooks consults with Wharton, who believes Luther followed the right course of treatment, but concedes the diagnosis may have been incorrect, and the only way to know for sure is through an autopsy. Unfortunately, they're not in a jurisdiction where autopsies are mandatory except under specific circumstances; doctors need to get the consent of the family. And of course Ray refuses to consent because he does not want his brother's body "cut up". Dr. Sam Moreland, the head of the hospital played by Stanley Ridges, also denies the autopsy request, because he fears that a scandal involving their only black doctor could endanger funding.
Brooks and Wharton discover that Johnny is married, so they visit his widow, Edie Johnson, to get her to consent to the autopsy. Edie, played by Linda Darnell, grew up with the Biddles in Beaver Canal, the city's poor, white district, where racism is baked into the culture. Edie, it turns out, is divorced from Johnny and can't give consent. And while she refuses to help them at first, she later visits Ray in the prison ward to ask why he won't approve the autopsy. Ray tells her that Johnny would still be alive if he'd been treated by a white doctor, and that Wharton and Luther only want the autopsy so they can cover up the truth about Johnny's death. Ray convinces Edie that the doctors are attempting to play her for a "chump", and that she should tell Beaver Canal club owner Rocky Miller about the circumstances surrounding Johnny's death. Accompanied by Ray's deaf-mute other brother George, played by Harry Bellaver, Edie does this, and Rocky and his pals plan to attack the black section of town.
Brooks, speaking with a black elevator operator named "Lefty", learns that the black community has heard about the pending attack and is planning to strike first. When Brooks tries to dissuade him, Lefty, who's played by Dols Johnson, reminds him of past assaults on the black community, and asks, "Ain't it asking a lot for us to be better than them when we get killed just trying to prove we're as good?"
We get a scene depicting both groups preparing for the riot, and it's clear that it's going to be very ugly. The blacks manage to succeed in their attempt to take the riot to Beaver Canal and surprise the whites, and it's a definite melee.
Brooks is in the prison ward when he gets a call to head down to the Emergency Ward because riot victims are coming in. He tends to everyone he encounters until a white woman orders him to take his "black hands" off her son and spits in his face. Brooks is stunned for a minute and then just walks out of the hospital.
Out of guilt at what her actions have caused, Edie visits Wharton's home, where she befriends his black maid, Gladys, though it's not without some race-based suspicion at first. The next morning Brooks' wife Connie, played by an uncredited Ruby Dee, comes to the house as well. She tells Wharton, Gladys, and Edie that Luther has turned himself in for the murder of Johnny Biddle. Wharton realizes that Luther has done this to force the coroner to conduct an autopsy on Biddle.
The autopsy confirms that Johnny did, in fact, die of a brain tumor and that Luther's course of treatment was correct. Ray only grows angrier at this, convinced of a conspiracy to bury the truth. After overhearing Wharton say that he is leaving town for vacation, Ray and George overpower the police guard and escape, but Ray re-injures his wounded leg. Ray and George force Edie to call Brooks and lure him to Wharton's empty house. Drunk and in great pain, Ray raves that he is going to kill Brooks and leaves. Edie, left with the deaf George guarding her, turns her radio up very loud to get the attention of the neighbors and escapes when they capture George.
At Wharton's house, Ray holds a gun on Brooks as he beats him and repeatedly shouts slurs. Edie arrives and sees that Ray's physical pain and obsessive hatred have pushed him beyond any point of being reasoned with. Pretending to go get a glass of water for Ray, Edie turns out the lights just as Ray pulls the trigger. Brooks is shot in the arm, but grabs Ray's gun after he collapses in pain. Ray's torn his stitches open and could bleed out. Edie thinks this is a good idea but Brooks says he cannot let Ray die simply because of his racism, and convinces Edie to help him save Ray's life by turning her scarf into a tourniquet. As we hear the distant police sirens approach, Ray breaks down crying hysterically. Brooks says to him, "Don't cry, white boy, you're gonna live." The film ends as Edie opens the door to allow the police in.
