Storm Center

Storm Center (1956) is an American drama film directed by Daniel Taradash. The screenplay by Taradash and Elick Moll focuses on what were at the time two very controversial subjects, Communism and book banning, and took a strong stance against censorship. The film stars Bette Davis and was the first overtly anti-McCarthyism film to be produced in Hollywood.

Synopsis

Alicia Hull is a widowed small town librarian dedicated to introducing children to the joy of reading. In exchange for fulfilling her request for a children's wing, the city council asks her to withdraw the book The Communist Dream from the library's collection. When she refuses to comply with their demand, she is fired and branded as a subversive. Especially upset by this is young Freddie Slater, a boy with a deep love of books whom Alicia has closely mentored.

Judge Ellerbe feels Alicia has been treated unfairly and calls a town meeting, hoping to rally support for her. However, ambitious attorney and aspiring politician Paul Duncan, who is dating assistant librarian Martha Lockeridge, undermines those efforts by publicly revealing Alicia's past associations with organizations that turned out to be Communist fronts. Alicia notes that she resigned as soon as she found out the true nature of the organizations, but Duncan's incendiary revelations result in only a handful of people showing up to the meeting. Those that do attend express concern about being branded Communists themselves if they stand with Alicia. Upon hearing their concerns, Alicia informs the meeting that she no longer wishes to fight the city council and wants to let the matter drop. With no opposition to her removal mounted, virtually the entire town eventually turns against Alicia.

Storm

A storm is any disturbed state of an environment or astronomical body's atmosphere especially affecting its surface, and strongly implying severe weather. It may be marked by significant disruptions to normal conditions such as strong wind, hail, thunder and lightning (a thunderstorm), heavy precipitation (snowstorm, rainstorm), heavy freezing rain (ice storm), strong winds (tropical cyclone, windstorm), or wind transporting some substance through the atmosphere as in a dust storm, blizzard, sandstorm, etc.

Storms generally lead to negative impacts on lives and property such as storm surge, heavy rain or snow (causing flooding or road impassibility), lightning, wildfires, and vertical wind shear; however, systems with significant rainfall can alleviate drought in places they move through. Heavy snowfall can allow special recreational activities to take place which would not be possible otherwise, such as skiing and snowmobiling.

The English word comes from Proto-Germanic *sturmaz meaning "noise, tumult".

Center

Center or centre may refer to:

Mathematics and science

Sports