Panic in the Streets 1950
I had never heard of this movie, but it has an impressive pedigree: directed by Elia Kazan and the first starring role for Jack Palance. It showed up in a wave of blu-rays at Dollar Tree, making it a great value. It is a good movie, not great. The plot revolves around a potential outbreak of pneumonic plague in New Orleans.The disease starts among some criminals who don’t want to be caught, making the job of the public health officials and police much harder. They don’t want to cause a panic, so they quietly go about decontaminating known locations of victims and quarantining people they know are exposed. Most public health officials are going to make the information public so that people can take precautions and self-report if they fall ill, so the whole premise of a quiet campaign may be bogus. The plot actually deals with that idea a little but still makes the secret approach seem wise. Even today, with an outbreak of coronavirus in the news, officials and people deal with these issues. So I think the plot device still works. The part about tracking down the bad guys plays more like a police procedural, which is fine, but it has been done a lot since 1950. Seeing a young Jack Palance with his odd facial features and height is interesting. The blu-ray includes two 45-minute features, one about Jack Palance and the other about his co-star, Richard Widmark, which are good, showing the career lines of two actors who never really broke out in a big way, but are still known stars.
Written: 12 Feb 2020
Owned on: Blu-ray