User reviews

In New Orleans, an illegal immigrant feels sick and leaves a poker game while winning the smalltime criminal Blackie (Walter Jack Palance). He is chased by Blackie and his men Raymond Fitch (Zero Mostel) and Poldi (Guy Thomajan), killed by Blackie and his body is dumped in the sea. During the autopsy, the family man Lieutenant Commander Dr. Clinton Reed (Richard Widmark) of the U.S. Public Health Service finds that the dead man had pneumonic plague caused by rats and he needs to find who had any type of contact with the man within forty-eight hours to avoid an epidemic. The City Mayor assigns the skeptical Captain Tom Warren (Paul Douglas) to help Dr. Clint to find the killers that are infected with the plague and inoculate them.

"Panic in the Streets" discloses a simple story, but it is still effective and with a great villain. The engaging plot has not become dated after fifty-seven years. Jack Palance performs a despicable scum in his debut, and the camera work while he tries to escape with Zero Mostel is still very impressive. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Pânico nas Ruas" ("Panic in the Streets")

Note: On 29 May 2016, I saw this film again.

"Panic in the Streets" is a fairly unknown little movie from director Elia Kazan and was made before his classic masterpieces such as "A Streetcar Named Desire", "On the Waterfront" and "East of Eden". Kazan already won an Oscar in 1947, before this movie, so he was not a completely unknown at the time. Still "Panic in the Streets" is mostly a movie that passed under the radar.

The great thing about this movie is the Oscar winning script. It has a very good concept and its excellent tense thriller material with a sniff of crime/film-noir elements. The dialog in this movie is also absolutely magnificent and gives the movie a feel of reality and credibility.

The cast is fairly unknown (especially at the time it was released) but it still features Zero Mostel and Jack Palance in one of their first movie roles. Especially Palance impresses as the tough gangster boss, with a very powerful looking face.

Still the movie drags a little at some points. The movie starts of very well but after the start the movie slows down and does not always makes the right decisions in terms of pace and the point of view the story is told from.

Yet, "Panic in the Streets" remains a perfectly watchable movie, mainly due to its solid script and powerful dialog that makes the movie a believable one to watch. For fans of the thriller genre this is a great movie to watch.

8/10

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In Panic In The Streets Richard Widmark plays U.S. Navy doctor who has his week rudely interrupted with a corpse that contains plague. As cop Paul Douglas properly points out the guy died from two bullets in the chest. That's not the issue here, the two of them become unwilling partners in an effort to find the killers and anyone else exposed to the disease.

As was pointed out by any number of people, for some reason director Elia Kazan did not bother to cast the small parts with anyone that sounds like they're from Louisiana. Having been to New Orleans where the story takes place I can personally attest to that. Richard Widmark and his wife Barbara Bel Geddes can be excused because as a Navy doctor he could be assigned there, but for those that are natives it doesn't work.

But with plague out there and the news being kept a secret, the New Orleans PD starts a dragnet of the city's underworld. The dead guy came off a ship from Europe and he had underworld connections. A New Orleans wise guy played by Jack Palance jumps to a whole bunch of erroneous conclusions and starts harassing a cousin of the dead guy who is starting to show plague symptoms. Palance got rave reviews in the first film where he received notice.

Personally my favorite in this film is Zero Mostel. This happened right before Mostel was blacklisted and around that time he made a specialty of playing would be tough guys who are really toadies. He plays the same kind of role in the Humphrey Bogart film, The Enforcer. Sadly I can kind of identify with Mostel in that last chase scene where he and Palance are being chased down by Widmark, Douglas, and half the New Orleans Police. Seeing the weight challenged Zero trying to keep up with Palance was something else because I'm kind of in Zero's league now in the heft department.

Kazan kept the action going at a good clip, there's very little down time in this film. If there was any less it would be an Indiana Jones film. Panic In The Streets won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay that year.

Kazan also made good use of the New Orleans waterfront and the French Quarter. Some of the same kinds of shots are later used in On the Waterfront. In fact Panic In The Streets is about people not squealing when they really should in their own best interest. Very similar again to On the Waterfront.

Panic In The Streets does everyone proud who was associated with it. Now why couldn't Elia Kazan get some decent New Orleans sounding people in the small roles.

I had forgotten this movie until I saw it again on the the satellite. You can feel, see and smell the New Orleans of 1950, thanks to Kazan, his cast and script. A few months ago, the fear and problem of a biological bomb would seem fictional. Today, not so. This movie is almost a precursor of today. We have dedicated men in law enforcement and the medical community trying to catch the carriers of the disease. They have to bend a few rules to catch them. The bad guys Jack Palance and Zero Mostel play off each other perfectly. The one domineering and evil, the other passive and pathetic. I like the movie because Richard Widmark and the police Captain played by Paul Douglas are portrayed as guys just getting by financially, but the most important guys in town while the bugs are loose. Great Movie.

This film is actually pertinent even today given the threat of bio-terrorism, and the threats of superbugs, West Nile Virus, and SARS. As a thriller, the tension is fairly intense. Richard Widmark and Paul Douglas are more than serviceable in their roles. The domestic scenes between Widmark and his wife provide a nice interlude to the main plot. The actor in this film who most left his mark is Jack Palance. His sharply defined features and seemingly easygoing exterior always wither way to reveal the avaricious and cruel man beneath the surface. The chase scene through the packing plant is impressive even today. Recommended, 7/10.

When a stiff turns up with pneumonic plague (a variant of bubonic plague), U.S. Public Health Service official Dr. Clinton Reed (Richard Widmark) immediately quarantines everyone whom he knows was near the body. Unfortunately, the stiff got that way by being murdered, and there's a good chance that the murderer will start spreading the plague, leading to an epidemic. Enter Police Captain Tom Warren (Paul Douglas), who is enlisted to track down the murderer as soon as possible and avert a possible national disaster.

While Panic in the Streets is a quality film, it suffers from being slightly unfocused and a bit too sprawling (my reason for bringing the score down to an eight). It wanders the genres from noirish gangster to medical disaster, police procedural, thriller and even romance.

This is not director Elia Kazan's best work, but saying that is a bit disingenuous. Kazan is the helmer responsible such masterpieces as A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), On The Waterfront (1954) and East of Eden (1955), after all. This film predates those, but Kazan has said that he was already "untethered" by the studio. Taking that freedom too far may partially account for the sprawl. The film is set in New Orleans, a city where Kazan "used to wander around . . . night and day so I knew it well". He wanted to exploit the environment. "It's so terrific and colorful. I wanted boats, steam engines, warehouses, jazz joints--all of New Orleans".

Kazan handles each genre of Panic in the Streets well, but they could be connected better. The film would have benefited by staying with just one or two of its moods. The sprawl in terms of setting would have still worked. Part of the dilemma may have been caused by the fact that Panic in the Streets was an attempt to merge two stories by writers Edna and Edward Anhalt, "Quarantine" and "Some Like 'Em Cold".

The gangster material, which ends up in firmly in thriller territory with an extended chase scene near the end of the film, is probably the highlight. Not surprisingly, Kazan has said that he believes the villains are "more colorful--I never had much affection for the good guys anyway. I don't like puritans". A close second is the only material that approaches the "panic" of the title--the discovery of the plague and the attempts to track down the exposed, inoculate them and contain the disease. While there is plenty of suspense during these two "moods", much of the film is also a fairly straightforward drama, with pacing more typical of that genre.

The dialogue throughout is excellent. The stylistic difference to many modern films could hardly be more pronounced. It is intelligent, delivered quickly and well enunciated by each character. Conflict isn't created by "dumb" decisions but smart moves; events and characters' actions are more like a chess game. When unusual stances are taken, such as Reed withholding the plague from the newspapers, he gives relatively lengthy justifications for his decisions, which other characters argue over.

In light of this, it's interesting that Kazan believed that "propriety, religion, ethics and the middle class are all murdering us". That idea works its way into the film through the alterations to the norm, or allowances away from it, made by the protagonists. For example, head gangster Blackie (Jack Palance in his first film role) is offered a "Get Out of Jail Free" card if he'll cooperate with combating the plague.

The technical aspects of the film are fine, if nothing exceptional, but the real reasons to watch are the performances, the intriguing scenario and the well-written dialogue.

A doctor and a policeman in New Orleans have only 48 hours to locate a killer infected with pneumonic plague.

An effective and class, little thriller directed by Elia Kazan that blends documentary realism with a race against time pulpy heartbeat. Set and filmed in and around New Orleans, Panic In The Streets is taken from the story Quarantine, Some Like 'em Cold by Edna and Edward Anhalt who won an Oscar for original story. It also boasts a fine ensemble cast that deliver top rate performances for their director. In turn, Richard Widmark (bringing the method a year before Marlon did for Kazan in A Streetcar Named Desire), Paul Douglas, Jack Palance (as Walter Jack Palance) & the wonderfully named Zero Mostel, all get sweatily moody as the pursuers chase the pursued to halt the onset of a potential Black Death epidemic.

Where the film scores its main suspense points is with Kazan's astute ability to cut back and forth between the protagonists without altering the flow and mood of the piece. From Widmark's Public Health doctor, with hypodermic needle in hand, running around trying to locate the bad guys so he can do good - to the bad guys themselves who are bemused as to why there is such a wide scale hunt for them. The tension is stacked up to fever breaking point, to which thankfully the final thirty minutes becomes a cracking piece of cinema, with Palance excelling as a nasty villain that ironically puts one in mind of Widmark's own Tommy Udo from Kiss Of Death three years previously.

It's an imaginative and intelligently written story, one that cunningly links rats and criminals to being carriers of disease. A blight on society as it were. It's noirish elements, such as paranoia, blend nicely with its basic procedural thriller being. While some memorable scenes are suitably cloaked by the stifling atmosphere that Kazan has created. Although some of the early character psychologizing threatens to steer the film down some over talky based alleyways, this definitely is a film worth staying with to the end. Not essential film-noir in my personal book, and maybe not even essential Kazan? but certainly a highly recommended film that begs to be discovered by a new generation of film lovers and reappraised by the old guard who may have missed it back in the day. 7.5/10

Refreshing `lost' gem! Featuring effective dialog combined with excellent acting to establish the characters and involve you enough to care what happens to them. The Douglas and Widmark characters are realistic heroes. Palance is his usual evil presence. Widmark win the fisticuffs fight scene, a car chase of less than 60 seconds with a `logical' end, and a lengthy chase on foot that shames the overdone chase sequences of contemporary Hollywood. You know how it will likely end, but the suspense and interest are sustained throughout. The end of the chase is one of the most realistic you will ever see. The film seems to slow a little past the middle, but stay with it for the rewarding conclusion.

When plague breaks out in New Orleans, it's Richard Widmark to the rescue in "Panic in the Streets," one of the lesser-celebrated films of the great Elia Kazan. Kazan keeps the pace brisk, and there are lots of marvelous touches - the scenes between Widmark and Barbara Bel Geddes, who plays his wife and the scene in the police station show family life and work life and the relationships of average citizens, which is in sharp contrast to the lives and relationships of the low-lifes, portrayed by a menacing Jack Palance, his weak yes man, Zero Mostel, Tommy Cook, and Louis Charles. There are also some interesting visuals - Palance has a couple of scenes with actors who seem to come up to his knees in height.

The acting is marvelous and the dialogue sharp if the story isn't quite up to the direction and performances. It has a few questionable aspects which will be spotted by the viewer quite easily. That aside, it's well worth viewing. Kazan was a masterful director.

A criminal type, Blackie (Jack Palance) and his two lackeys (Zero Mostel as Fitch and Tommy Cook as Poldi) chase an illegal alien through the streets of New Orleans and shoot him over him leaving a poker game after he won all of the money. They dump the body and it's found the next day. But the guy doing the exam at the morgue thinks there is something wrong with the body other than the bullet holes. Clinton Reed (Richard Widmark) of the U. S. Health Service is called in and says the guy died of plague.

The guy turns out to be an unknown. The authorities figure out the illegal alien part pretty quickly, and now they have to figure out where he's been (how he got it) and who the people are he's been in contact with (who is likely to get it). A full blown epidemic could be in progress in four days. The public needs to be kept in the dark because if they knew then they'll start leaving town and spread the plague nationwide or even worldwide, the press knows something is up and is trying to sniff out a story, and Dr. Reed is partnered with a homicide detective (Paul Douglas) who is not particularly fond of doctors in the first place.

A complicating factor is that Mostel's Fitch actually does get caught up in the initial dragnet the police put out, but they don't know his association with the case and let him go when he appears to know nothing. But his boss Blackie gets the wrong idea. He figures that the police are making such a fuss because their victim brought drugs into the country, and that since Poldi was the guy's cousin, that he must have the drugs and that he is holding out on him.

Especially striking were some scenes with politicians having trouble taking health experts predictions about possible infections seriously and arguments with reporters about what kind of information the public needs to know. A comment Widmark made about the pointlessness of focusing only on the location of the initial appearance of a pandemic in the modern (for 1950!) era of transportation where anyone can quickly travel half way around the world in a short time was particularly prescient. In addition to the intelligent script, the direction is excellent, combining extremely realistic, on-location documentary-style filming on the streets of New Orleans, and dark, expressionistic film noir stylistics.

There's also quite a bit about Dr. Reed's domestic life, and it seems that being a federal employee was not nearly as lucrative in 1950 as it is today. I wonder when that changed?

Kazan's early film noir won an Oscar. Some of the reviews here go into extraordinary detail and length about the film and its symbolism, and rate it very highly. I can almost see where they are coming from. But I prefer to take a more toned-down approach to a long-forgotten film that appears to have been shot on practically no budget and in quasi-documentary fashion. Pneumonic plague is loose in the streets of New Orleans, and it is up to a military doctor (Widmark) and a city detective (Douglas) to apprehend the main carrier (Palance). The film is moody, shot in stark black and white, and makes very good use of locations. Widmark is wonderful as usual. Forget the symbolism (crime equals disease, and disease equals crime) and just enjoy the chase. It is not always easy watching a film like this now that we are well into this new century, as it is of a particular style that was very short-lived (post WWII through the early 1950s) and will unlikely be of interest to the casual film watcher. For those who will be watching this for the first time, sit tight for the big chase at the end. It is something else, and frankly I don't know how they filmed some of it. I can say it probably took as long to film the finale as it did the first 90 percent of the movie.

In New Orleans, Blackie (Jack Palance) and his thugs attack and kill a sick man who walked out of his game after winning his money. The coroner finds something suspicious and calls in Dr. Clinton Reed (Richard Widmark). He declares it the extremely contagious pneumonic plague. He faces opposition as he tries to raise the alarm.

This is a rough and meandering thriller. The most compelling thing about the movie is the title. It's a lot of cop and robber procedural. Jack Palance is a good ruffian when he's on the screen. I like the dark gritty opening. Richard Widmark is a solid tough guy. None of the other actors are quite as striking. I don't find the investigation that compelling. It would be better if lots of people start dropping dead. The real world locations are great but the movie isn't terribly thrilling.

This is listed as a "film noir," a gangster film and I suppose it, is but it plays more like just a straight drama. It's the story of an immigrant who is infected with the pneuomic plague (but "bubonic," as listed on the back of the VHS cover) and the race to discover all the people he had come in contact with, including a criminal (Jack Palance) and his gang.

The great black-and-white cinematography helps put it in the film-noir category, I imagine, but the story still takes precedence over the stark photography here. The angular-faced Palance, listed as "Walter Jack Palance" in here, always makes for a good villain and Zero Mostel was an interesting part of his group.

Richard Widmark played an normal intense role, except this time as a good guy, and Barbara Bel Geddes was her normal wholesome character. Despite third billing, she didn't have as many lines as I would have preferred to hear. Frankly, I prefer Widmark as the crazy-type villain. He spends much of the time in this film as a frustrated doctor, yelling at the cop Paul Douglas. That gets tiresome after awhile.

It's a grim story: not a whole lot of laughs here, but it's entertaining and moves fast......and the ending chase scene is a knockout! A good addition to anyone's collection of classic films, whatever you want to label it.

A very good movie directed by the talented Elia Kazan. There were a few non-professional actors, and a bit of the script and scenes seem a little corny, even amateurish, but overall, the directing, film editing, sound, camera work, and production were great. The overall story itself was also very good, maybe just a tiny bit over the top for film noir. But the acting performances by Richard Widmark, Jack Palance, Paul Douglas, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tommy Cook, Zero Mostel, and the other professional actors were all great.

Now for the real attraction. I thought Jack Palance was outstanding in this film, which was his feature film debut. Although the character he played ("Blackie") was a very bad (but smart) criminal, and he didn't have a lot of scenes, Palance's acting performance was fantastic. There are several scenes in this movie that are now on my all-time favorites list because of Palance's presence. I liked Palance in the "City Slickers" films, especially the sequel, but I never realized that he was such a talented actor in his early years. This film made me a Jack Palance fan, and I began buying early films that he was in.

As I'm writing this review, pretty much the entire world is in some sort of lockdown due to the Covid-19 virus. This modest film-noir classic, that incidentally also turns 70 (!) years old in 2020, also handles with the outbreak of a highly contagious virus - the pneumonic plague - in a big & crowded city. It's downright astonishing to see how very few things have changed in seventy years, in fact. Notably the sequences near the beginning, during which Dr. Reed desperately tries to persuade the local politicians and authorities about the seriousness of the menace while they are minimizing it, is shockingly relevant today! Moreover, numerous aspects in "Panic in the Streets", such as the increasing fear, the concept of contact tracing, the gradual spreading of virus and the feeling of helplessness when the first victims decease, feel frightfully familiar these days.

Purely talking cinematically, "Panic in the Street" is also a very solid, tense and sophisticated film-noir gem, which can - of course - more or less be expected from a director like Elia Kazan, and a cast that includes names like Richard Widmark, Paul Douglas and Jack Palance (in one of his first, but nevertheless most memorable roles). When, in the docks of New Orleans, the corpse of a criminal execution victim is discovered and diagnosed with the pneumonic plague, a manhunt-against-the-clock must urgently be set up. Military Doctor Reed and police Captain Warren have 48hrs. to find the murderers, as they are undoubtedly plague-carriers as well, before they will start infecting new and numerous victims. The performances and atmosphere are great, though admittedly the pacing occasionally slugs and the plot shouldn't have focused so much on the interactions between Dr. Reed and Capt. Douglas. The towering Jack Palance is massively intimidating as the killer with the silly name ("Blackie").

The wharf area of New Orleans, where fragrances of fish, cargo ships fuel, wastes from nearby restaurants, sweat for heated nights and tobacco smoke from unrecommendable poker-players blend together into the atmosphere that will serve the nerve-wracking plot of Elia Kazan's "Panic in the Streets", a noir thriller that mixes many elements from the police procedural film and the gangster picture with a location that never fails to give a touch of authenticity, as it will be the case for Kazan's coming masterpieces. The story is set "on the waterfront", but the streetcar ain't named desire but medical emergency. And surely, a post-Covid public might be more sensitive to that subject.

The film starts in all noir fashion, when a sickly man stricken by fever, severe coughing and flu-like symptoms leaves a winning card game, his partners don't take it in a very sportsmanlike way, they follow his quivering running until finally cornering him in a tunnel lit from the far end. In strong black-and-white contrast, we witness a macabre shadow puppet show concluded by the fatal bullets shot by Blackie (Jack Palance) His associates Fitch (Zero Mostel) and Poldi (actually, the victim's cousin) throw the corpse on the dock. Unbeknownst to them, they got him out of his misery for Kochak (the victim) was to die of pneumonic plague anyway. But by handling the corpse, they inherited the germs, a rather interesting case of posthumous revenge from a victim.

Kazan knows he's handling one heck of a plot here. Written by Edna and Edward Anhalt (who'd win an Oscar) it is certainly the most creative since "D. O. A" with Edmund O'Brien, but the choice of tone is one of striking realism, Kazan never uses stock characters such as private eyes, bartenders or gangster moles and the victim's Slavic background brings on the screen many colorful aspects of the immigrant presence in New Orleans. The director also enlightens us of the merit of good crisis management, showing how sometimes disasters are prevented by sheer professionalism. The unsung hero of the film is actually the coroner who once discovering the bacteria in Kochak's body, decides to postpone his lunch, close the morgue and keep all those who had contact with the corpse "just in case". He then calls the US. Public Health Service and this is where Lieutenant Commander Clinton Reed, played by Richard Widmarck, enters the picture.

The casting of Widmarck is interesting for he has the looks of a civil servant with enough charisma to be credible but not too glamorous to strike as a Hollywood face. The first scenes show him as one of the typical 50s fathers, helping Junior to paint a box and complaining to his wife (Barbare Bel Geddes) that his day-off is canceled. The backstory gives a little quietness before the storm effect until he discovers what is as stakes: a man affected by the plague was killed, his killers or at the very least carriers got the germs so this is a deadly issue. Given the time of incubation, they have 48 hours to find the killers and inoculate all the people that crossed the path of Kochak. Talk about an interesting premise of police investigation where finding a killer is a matter of life-and-death... for everybody.

For that task, he'll collaborate with Captain Warren (Paul Douglas) a man who distrusts his Cassandra-like attitude and his zealous methods but he's got integrity and counts on Reed to let him conduct the investigation his way. The problem is that they have to start from scratch, that they deal in the world of seamen and gangsters and neither had made a reputation of being 'talkative' with the authorities, (the "On the Waterfront" omerta) and telling the press is no option since it would only lead to mass panic and eventually have the killers leave. A massive investigation through the local underworld brings Fitch to the police station, and so Blackie is alerted about the police on-goings and suspects that Kochak might have smuggled some valuable stuff and so the plot thickens when the villains sabotage the very efforts that are meant to save them. The irony would be savorous if it wasn't for the several lives in danger.

There's never a truly dull moment and the sense of emergency that keeps governing Reed and Warren's actions from the docks' shadiest places to Greek restaurants and ultimately in a massive chase on daylight keeps us over the edge of our seats. Kazan even allows a few pauses where Reed questions his competence with Warren and his wife and Warren explaining his dislike of doctors. The actors' performances are on par with the noir-school of authenticity when the heroes doubt themselves and the villains are cowardly (you'd even feel sorry for Mostel's character at times).

Naturally, for the sake of plot accuracy, the film has to take a few artistic licenses about the varying lethality of the disease, it's hard to believe that Blackie didn't contaminate more people and that it all revolves around him but the human aspect of the film and the middle section where the freedom of press is added into that complex equation speak loudly about Kazan's ambition to make more than an average thriller, he who'd make many films about the media. Still, "Panic in the Streets" is certainly more exciting for its race around the clock format, ending with with a rather ironic imagery of Blackie struggling to get over a rat-shield on a mooring rope. Like his own victim who was cornered like a rat, he becomes a rat himself.

But what a big animal... this was the debut of actor Jack Palance and from that starting point where he embodied the laid-back but quite intimidating thug , his chiseled face, devilish smile and faux-suave manners established one truth: whenever menace is called for, a presence such as Jack Palance would rhyme with 'enhance'.

In this Elia Kazan police drama, murder is the least of everyone's worries. It seems impossible, doesn't it, that finding out the murderer isn't the priority when a dead body is found? But when Doctor Richard Widmark diagnoses the body as having the bubonic plague, the cops are much more motivated to find out who the victim had contact with before he died, rather than just finding out who killed him. Teamed with policeman Paul Douglas, Dick scours the streets to solve the mystery. Dick and Paul don't see eye to eye or get along, and their antagonism motivates the movie far more than the imminent threat that's supposed to captivate the audience. Dick insults Paul, saying he's proved his mother's theory of goodness in human nature wrong; Paul quips back, "My apologies to your mother. That's the second mistake she made."

"Walter Jack Palance" makes his screen debut as a scary villain. It's pretty cute to see his full name in the credits, as well as some of his famous strength. He doesn't do any one-armed push-ups, but he does do quite a bit of acrobatic climbing in this one. If you like him in this movie, check him out in Sudden Fear, where he plays another great bad guy. All in all, the movie has a lot of tense moments, action scenes, and time-sensitive motivation to make it very entertaining.

There's a very small subplot in which Richard Widmark and Barbara Bel Geddes have marital problems because he wants more children and she doesn't. In old movies, we know the code behind their argument, especially since Dick is seen sleeping on the sofa. When she finally says, "Tommy shouldn't be an only child," Dick gets a sexy grin on his face and says the only thing the Hays Code allows him to say: "You son of a gun. . ."

"Panic in the Streets" is a pretty standard B-movie that is raised a notch above other standard B-movies by its direction. Elia Kazan could take just about any material and make it better than it would otherwise have been in the hands of many others, and this film is no exception. It's a high-concept film: a murdered man's body ends up at the New Orleans city morgue and an autopsy reveals that it was infected with bubonic plague. The race is on to find the man's murderer to stop an epidemic. You would think this would get fairly run-of-the-mill treatment, which it sort of does, but it's Kazan's version of run-of-the-mill, which means there are all sorts of little directorial touches that prevent the film's style from feeling anonymous.

Kazan had a knack for atmosphere, and the New Orleans setting really comes alive, as it would a year later for his masterpiece "A Streetcar Named Desire." Richard Widmark is the doctor from the health bureau whom no one will believe, and he gives a fine, tense performance. Jack Palance uses his unbelievably sharp cheekbones and jawline to good effect as Blackie, the murderer on the lam. Zero Mostel is assigned the thankless duty of playing Blackie's sap of a fall guy. And I really liked Paul Douglas in a droll performance as the New Orleans chief of police and Widmark's right-hand-man.

The premise of this movie has become eerily relevant in today's climate, which actually makes it somewhat uncomfortable to watch. But it's actually got a surprising amount of humor in it too. Widmark and Barbara Bel Geddes, who plays his wife, have a lot of witty banter that sounds like the way married people really talk. Credit once again goes to Kazan for creating a female character that feels like a full-bodied person and not simply a collection of "feminine" traits. Widmark and Douglas are funny together too, and there's a laugh-out-loud scene when Douglas is interrogating some Asian boat workers who have only the barest grasp of the English language.

The obligatory chase and fight scene at the end does not feel at all staged, which is refreshing. The fist fight looks clunky and clumsy, which is how fist fights in real life are, not the nicely choreographed things we are used to seeing in Hollywood movies. The whole movie has a refreshing realism to it, so while it may not be especially profound or one that you remember for years, it will probably entertain you for a couple of hours at least and may strike you as a cut above other movies of its type.

Grade: B+

This is a film about a plague that will potentially spread through the population and doctor Richard Widmark (Clinton) and Captain Paul Douglas (Tom) are heading the team to stop this from happening. They need to vaccinate those who have been exposed and stop 3 gangsters, headed by Jack Palance (Blackie), who are roaming the streets as carriers.

Well, isn't it amazing how much time you can spend talking whilst repeating yourself and getting nowhere. Nothing happens! Oh look, some more talking. We also get scenes of Widmark's family life which has no relevance and is incredibly boring. This film includes an annoying kid who says "Pop" with EVERY sentence. How dumb is that! And Widmark's wife Barbera Bel Geddes (Nancy) is utterly pointless.

Widmark should be a bad guy not a good guy and this film needed some better female roles. Did anybody else have alarm bells ringing with the appearance of that guy who likes to watch the kid. He has two appearances, one at the film's end, and it is painfully obvious to me what is happening. Paedo alert!!

The soundtrack scores the films some marks.

"The Killer That Stalked New York" is a far better film from the same year about the same topic. Watch that instead.