Day by day

The Lawless

USA // 1950 // Noir/Blanc // 83'
English with French subtitles

A population of Mexican farm workers lives in the over-crowded suburb of Santa Maria on the outskirts of the city. One evening, a fight breaks out between some privileged youths and a group of Mexican-origin teenagers. One of the latter knocks a policeman out and takes to his heels with the police in pursuit.
Joseph Losey’s lucid direction constructs a psychological drama in which racial discrimination and violence rub shoulders with the noble values of friendship, love and justice. This social critique will send the famous director – a Communist Party member obliged to testify before the Anti-American Affairs Committee –into exile for having dared to make this film.

Joseph Losey