Thriller

Crime

Panic in the Streets

20th Century Fox

United States of America

普通话

ελληνικά

English

Richard Widmark

Paul Douglas

Barbara Bel Geddes

Jack Palance

Zero Mostel

Dan Riss

Tommy Cook

Wilson Bourg Jr.

Beverly C. Brown

Lewis Charles

Herman Cottman

John David

William A. Dean

Robert Dorsen

George Ehmig

H. Waller Fowler Jr.

Paul Hostetler

Elia Kazan

Edward Kennedy

Mary Liswood

Henry Mamet

Tiger Joe Marsh

Ruth Moore Mathews

Emile Meyer

Alex Minotis

Rex Moad

Ray Müller

Lenka Peterson

Waldo Pitkin

Tommy Rettig

Stanley J. Reyes

John Schilleci

Al Theriot

Guy Thomajan

Arthur Tong

H.T. Tsiang

Irvine Vidacovich

Juan Villasana

Pat Walshe

Val Winter

Leo Zinser

Aline Stevens

Edna Anhalt

Richard Murphy

Daniel Fuchs

Edward Anhalt

Joseph MacDonald

Sol C. Siegel

Alfred Newman

Harmon Jones

Charles LeMaire

Maurice Ransford

Ben Nye

Travilla

Thomas Little

Fred J. Rode

Lyle R. Wheeler

Roger Heman Sr.

W.D. Flick

Sam Benson

John Lee Mahin

Michael Audley

Til Gabani

Jack N. Young

Fred Sersen

F.E. 'Johnny' Johnston

Red Nichols

Lyman Hallowell

Bernard Mayers

Joseph C. Behm

Edward B. Powell

Herbert W. Spencer

Benny Carter

Stanley K. Scheuer

Ernie Felice

Philip Yordan

Sweaty clock ticker from Elia Kazan.

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

CinemaSerf

As of March 2020, a rather apposite story of a New Orleans murderer who has a deadly plague. It falls to Richard Widmark and Paul Douglas to track down this walking petrie dish before his contagion spreads through the whole of the country. What follows is quite a quickly paced thriller with Barbara Bel Geddes as Widmark's rather pretty, but soporific gal and Jack Palance, menacing and thoughtless, portraying "Blackie" who, with Zero Mostel, is trying to help his toxic pal escape the clutches of his pursuers. The problem is that the cast are pretty wooden and don't gel especially well; it's a super story but told in an act-by-numbers style. It suffers from a mediocre, interfering score from Alfred Newman used way too much by Elia Kazan and the result is a pale imitation of what could have been.

Panic in the Streets | #TBT Trailer | 20th Century FOX

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Panic in the Streets

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Cast

Richard Widmark

Paul Douglas

Barbara Bel Geddes

Jack Palance

Zero Mostel

Dan Riss

Tommy Cook

Wilson Bourg Jr.

Beverly C. Brown

Lewis Charles

Box office

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