Panic in the Streets (1950)

Wonderful character development!

hyped garbage

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This was Jack Palance's debut in films as an actor (or should I say "Walter" Jack Palance, for some reason that's there in the credits), and he eats up every second of film he has. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and in a way it helps to lift up a character who has little dimension. He doesn't need it, you could argue: he's a thug who wants his money, that's it, and will do anything he can to get it (this may include killing, of course, which we see very early on as the thing that kicks off much of the story). He is imposing too physically, with that chiseled face and tall frame - at one point he talks to someone who is quite short and the difference between the two is like night and day - and he also is believable to the point where you realize why Zero Mostel (also very good as the talky-kinda-dumb lackey) is so subservient. Not much depth, no, but who needs depth when Palance can kick your ass any way to Sunday? In this story it's a film-noir but unique in that it's focus is not about a man-hunt only for the killer, but because of a plague (not the Bubonic plague, the other one the Numonic plague or other, the one that you just need to know is around now), and Richard Widmark plays the stalwart, headstrong doctor who will get his job done to catch the people infected (or even those, especially those, who may not be yet) into quarantine and given shots and so on. He's up against cops (including a sometimes-sympathetic-sometimes-not Paul Douglas), and a bevvy of other cops and reporters.Some of the early scenes with Widmark's family is pretty standard - he has a nice and loving and family, OK, that's fine - but once that's out of the way the story kicks in and it has a natural momentum to it. An outbreak or contagion-type of story is intrinsically dramatic because it brings people together - or, on the flip-side, it drives people apart and shows what self-interested idiots people can be some/most of the time. I don't know if Kazan meant for this to have deeper sociological meaning like On the Waterfront. Maybe the hunt for the people who've come in contact with the infected is a euphemism for Communism, or maybe not, it doesn't seem as cut and dry to me as in the latter film.In any case Panic in the Streets is engaging and enjoyable as a no-frills thriller, a picture that uses human nature and the lack of speaking up about something grave and dangerous as a way of forward momentum - who will speak up first, who won't - and if you want a simple cops and criminals chase story you get that also. I think it holds up most of all due to the performances though, even including the story, since Widmark, Panace, Mostel et al beef up the material with the kind of emotion that I'm sure Kazan was great at coaxing out of his actors (whether it was making them relaxed enough or getting them into the 'method' of it in the case of Palance I don't know).

If you've read my reviews for the last several days, you know that I'm on a kick to watch the available movies/TV shows of various original "Dallas" cast members-both recurring and regular-in chronological order during this summer of the new "Dallas" show now airing on TNT. So it's now I decided to watch Ms. Barbara Bel Geddes in 1950 co-starring above the title with Richard Widmark and Paul Douglas in this, a thrilling crime drama directed by the great Elia Kazan entirely in the city of New Orleans which is a two-hour drive from where I currently live in. Ms. Bel Geddes plays Widmark's wife and as such, doesn't really have many scenes in the movie that would be worthy of her billing but she did the best she could with what she was given with Widmark who plays a doctor that's looking for anyone who's come in contact with a killed victim since that victim had the plague that could contaminate the city. Paul Douglas is the cop who initially wants the doc to stay out of his way but reluctantly allows the investigation. As good as Widmark and Douglas are, it's really the thugs played by Zero Mostel and especially Walter Jack Palance-who'd eventually drop the first of his name-in his film debut that make the most impression. I also loved the atmosphere that one could only get from location shooting not to mention the cool background music of the Jazz sounds that originally came from the Crescent City. Really, I can't get over how much I loved this movie for the most part. So on that note, that's a high recommendation of Panic in the Streets.

Very few films have this kind of "flow", this kind of clever logistics. It is as though no strain went into the formation of the movie, but instead was the result of complete inspiration.The plot is that of a doctor and detective bonding together to stop a plague that is hidden in the underworld.The pace is unbelievably perfect. We are drawn in, hook, line, and sinker, into the story. Some movies struggle to do what this does. This movie not only tells a story, but takes you on a journey.One watches this and is mesmerized by the flow that is so natural. One wonders if it is incredibly clever writing or incredibly clever directing. Obviously, both are involved.

Lt. Cmdr. Clinton (Richard Widmark) is a military doctor who has the ungrateful duty of tracking down the killers of a mysterious foreign man who carried a deadly plague and now this disease might be spreading around the city, and Clinton must find everybody who had contact with the deceased in less than 48 hours before the news and the disease cause panic in the streets. Elia Kazan's "Panic in the Streets" is a good and original story at the time of its release about the difficulties of medical, political and law enforcement institutions in their mission of controlling things before they get out of control. In the story, Widmark's character not only has to find these guys, but he has to deal with bureaucracy among politics, journalists who sees in this case a great story to be published and that might alarm the people in a bad way, and the only help he's gonna get is with some people in the crowd who might have known the mysterious man, and help of a chief of police (Paul Douglas) who's not much cooperative at first so it's gonna take time to solve things but they don't have enough time to fulfill their task.The treatment given to the story wasn't too much interesting with its division of characters and situations. The chase for the "infecteds" was the most thrilling and interesting part of the plot; while the others involving Clinton's family and the bad guys played by Jack Palance and Zero Mostel, almost dragged the film into a boring and tiresome experience. Looking at the film in its surface it's very plausible but with some arguable problems. These guys are out there, they had contact the infected man, they walk to several places, talk to other people and they're spreading the plague, so how come only they had the disease and almost no one else does it too? I mean, the script was too much light and positive (yeah, I know it's the 1950's so they couldn't be so depressive showing that a disease could devastate a whole city), it wasn't realistic enough in this matter and it should be. People complain about the energetic "Outbreak" (1995) but that was a more effective film than this one, it had action, suspense, and also a run against the clock in order to stop a disease that was killing thousands of people. The climatic ending was great, with a long chase in the docks; and some dialog exchange between Douglas and Widmark was brilliant, funny and thoughtful. For what it tends to do it is a very good film and nothing more than that. But we know that Kazan has better works than this. 7/10