Mensajera de la muerte

Pretty hard to mix noir with a smallpox epidemic, but ace screenwriter Essex makes a go of it. That's thanks to weaving gem smuggler Sheila's (Keyes) personal story with the other thing she smuggled in, namely smallpox. So, as she travels around New York, so does the disease, causing a major urban crisis. As a result, we watch her get sicker and sicker chasing after a faithless boyfriend (Korvin); at the same time, the city comes more and more unglued chasing after her.

I love those nighttime street shots of Manhattan. Cameraman Biroc does an eye-catching job translating those into a noirish atmosphere that hangs like a death shroud over the city. How appropriate. And catch that great supporting cast of one familiar face after another adding a ton of character color. I'm just sorry the gorgeous Dorothy Malone wasn't given more to do than follow Dr. Wood (Bishop) around with a hypodermic needle. Then too, I hope glamour girl Keyes was paid double because she sure looks a wreck by movie's end.

Mark this one down as one more entry in the 1950's paranoia race. If it's not the Russian commies or some radioactive mutant or hideous space aliens, it's a deadly pandemic that threatened us all. It's a wonder we geezers survived. But that's okay, because the paranoia makes for exciting movie fare, including this nifty number. Meanwhile, I'm off to where else- - to get vaccinated, of course.

THE KILLER THAT STALKED NEW YORK is small pox. The woman who has it is EVELYN KEYES, whose bleached blonde hair and harsh unflattering make-up makes her look a far cry from the cutie she played in THE JOLSON STORY. She gives a chilling performance as a woman stiffed by her boyfriend (CHARLES KORVIN), both of them diamond smugglers unaware that in Cuba she picked up the deadly smallpox disease.

The good supporting cast includes WILLIAM BISHOP, WHIT BISSELL, RICHARD EGAN, DOROTHY MALONE, LOLA ALBRIGHT, and JIM BACKUS. It's photographed in film noir documentary style with voice-over narration, as many films of the '40s and '50s were--similar, in fact, to PANIC IN THE STREETS, another thriller with Jack Palance as the deadly carrier.

It's fast paced, with never a wasted moment of time in telling a story that runs one hour and nineteen minutes. Miss Keyes demonstrates that she was a much more talented actress than anyone ever suspected, with hidden depths in her portrait of a vengeful woman.

Well worth watching.

Robert Osborne, in introducing this movie to the Turner Classic Movie audience for the first time tonight, says that Columbia had to sit on the movie for about 6 months in order to let the similarly-plotted "Panic in the Streets" play out and leave the theaters. What we have then is a gritty, somewhat newsreel sounding (and looking) film whose narrator walks us through all the ironies of modern urban epidemiology. Worth noting, though, are the few scenes out in the street where the tragic couple lives. There's just enough street noise and confusion to make the scenes as claustrophobic as possible, while still being somehow life-affirming. Otherwise, it's a fine B noir plot with a lot of character and muscle, and cinematography to take off your hat to. Not to mention that hot kid sister -- hubba, hubba!

From 1950 comes a neat thriller about a couple smuggling diamonds from abroad and also the contagious disease smallpox. Evelyn Keyes pulls out all stops as the essential victim of this film-noir. Once back in the United States she is not aware that she could be spreading the disease on everyone and everything she comes in contact with. Eventually she is pursued and must be stopped before an epidemic occurs. Other than Keyes striking performance there is good support from villainous Charles Korvin, William Bishop, Dorothy Malone, Lola Albright and Whit Bissell. The finale is a humdinger with Miss Keyes on the ledge of a building with spotlights and hundreds of spectators below. A good B flick!

Sheila Bennet (Evelyn Keyes) is hot. She's just arrived from Cuba with some smuggled diamonds and a federal agent is shadowing her. She also has a fever from the small pox she is carrying onto the docks of New York.

With the country presently in the mist of a viral outbreak that has the entire state under quarantine and the country on full alert The Killer that Stalked New York is as pertinent today as it was when it was released in 1950. Based upon an outbreak in Queens that took place in 1947 it is given a felonious back story with a sleazy rogues gallery of marginals making the outbreak that much more slippery to contain.

Similar in theme and topic to the earlier released that year Panic in the Streets, it lacks the polish and form of the Kazan as it takes on a documentary feel at times but it does boast a fine performance from the desperate Keyes while Charles Korvin makes for a loathsome villain.