I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

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

*** This review may contain spoilers *** It isn't a film-noir, more of a Drama or Thriller.The Killer That Stalked New York (1950) plays off as some turgid 1950's health department warning to the citizens of America that smallpox is on the loose. It starts off with a rough-voiced narrator giving us the goods on some dame who smuggled in diamonds from Cuba. Well, it seems she picked up something else, the smallpox. She visits many places and then starts an epidemic in Manhattan. The health department, staffed by idiots it seems and cantankerous old men who complain constantly, are trying to send flatfoot health department investigators to find out where it started from, I don't know why. Plus they want to inoculate each and every person in the five boroughs. These folks were geniuses.One interesting thing is for architecture buffs to look out for the ambiance, it was filmed both in New York City and Los Angeles, California. She arrives to the Pennsylvania Station (1910–63) in Manhattan, but the interiors don't look anything like it. it was probably a station in Los Angeles.Put in a pestiferous T-man (treasury agent) looking for the dame and a few stupid comments from gawkers and this makes for an even worse picture.They add some crime element to the film, with the dame who smuggled in diamonds from Cuba and her husband who double-crossed her. There's plenty of sanctimonious narration from the rough-voiced narrator and those 1950's "thank you" to all the departments involved ending credits.In all, it's really not that good, Panic in the Streets (1950) directed by Elia Kazan with Richard Widmark and Jack Palance, which had a similar story, did it much better.You'll recognize plenty of faces from TV and film.

This is a film about a smallpox epidemic in New York City, and the 'killer' is the disease. The title thus gives a false impression that this is a crime film. The film has a police-procedural mode of delivery, with a droning narrator, very much in the style of the FBI and police films of that time. The film is rather terrifying in what it depicts, and I would not hesitate to describe it as 'a scare film'. It was made in close cooperation with the federal government, and it has a hysterical 'reds under the beds' air about it, even though it is germs rather than reds who threaten the USA this time. The film was also released under the title FRIGHTENED CITY, and is based upon what must have been a pretty scary Colliers Magazine article by Milton Lehman (his only contribution to the cinema). The screenplay is by the former journalist Harry Essex, who two years previously scripted the Laurence Tierney film BODYGUARD (1948, see my review). Evelyn Keyes plays the lead, a woman named Sheila Bennett, who has just returned from Cuba ('which has no quarantine arrangement with the US', as a medical man complains in the film) carrying some smuggled diamonds and carrying something else as well, the disease smallpox. This is thus one of the early epidemic scare films, which were to become much more common many years later, such as OUTBREAK (1995) with Dustin Hoffman. In fact, it is the earliest epidemic scare film I can recall seeing, though I presume there must have been others. It must have been difficult to persuade many possible leading ladies to play Sheila Bennett, because she has to spend most of the film looking terrible as she gets worse and worse with the disease, which does not appeal to the vanity of most stars. It is very much to the credit of Evelyn Keyes that she was willing to do this and was not deterred by considerations of her 'image'. Evelyn was a very fascinating and pleasant person, highly intelligent. I knew her during the time she had her relationship with Jack Cushingham in London. I didn't see nearly enough of her, as I was keen to discuss things much more, and we did have some interesting chats about her former husbands John Huston and Artie Shaw. She talked about Artie a lot. I wish I could remember all those stories. Someone should have taped hours of interviews with her, because she was so well-informed and was never lost for words. She was very sophisticated and had seen it all and was prepared to say so. Anyone who survived marriage to John Huston had to have a strong character. She divorced Huston in February of the year this film came out. So maybe one reason why she looked so rough was because of that. After all, what is smallpox compared to being married to a sadist, for despite his buckets full of charm, he was dangerously disturbed. And speaking of Jack Cushingham (1919-1985), his IMDb credits are seriously deficient. THE EXTRAORDINARY SEAMAN (1969), of which he was co-producer (it was by the way a terrible failure of a film), and QUACKSER FORTUNE HAS A COUSIN IN THE BRONX (1970), of which he was producer (a project concerning which I gave him not inconsiderable assistance), are not listed, because no one at IMDb has figured out that Jack Cushingham is in fact the same person as John S. Cushingham, for whom those two films are listed. The two entries need to be amalgamated into one. As someone who knew Jack very well many years ago, I feel I owe it to him to point this out for the historical record. Before being involved with Evelyn, Jack told me he had an affair with Joan Collins, and from time to time he would phone her and have long and friendly chats, even though they were no longer involved. He said what a wonderfully warm, friendly, and open person she was, and that she always liked to remain permanent friends with all the men who had ever been in her life. I was with him a couple of times when he phoned her, which was interesting, as they certainly were warm and friendly conversations, I can vouch for that. The fact that both Joan Collins and Evelyn Keyes found Jack interesting says a lot. For, as I said, Evelyn Keyes was really something, one of the strong women of Hollywood. As for this film, where she struggles with a deadly disease, I have a certain sympathy for people who survive epidemic diseases, for I once got cholera in China, though not in an epidemic, and I was only saved by less than two hours. (Once symptoms commence you only have between ten and twelve hours to live if not treated with massive rehydration and potassium. They had to inject 32 kilos of saline into me while they stuffed potassium pills in my mouth and injected potassium into the saline, which by the way makes your veins burn on the inside as if they are on fire, just in case you are interested.) My advice: stay at home, sleep in a plastic bubble, never go out, speak to no one, and don't use someone else's chopsticks. And just in case you think 'it can't happen to me', try watching this film. (On the subject of smallpox, the doctors informed my mother that she and I had inherited an immunity to it, as our many attempts to get vaccinated never 'took' and we never got scars on our arms like everybody else did. So I suppose some ancestor made it through a smallpox epidemic centuries ago and we inherited the antibodies. Strange but true. Maybe I should leave my blood to science.) If you watch this, don't eat popcorn, because you might choke.

In April 1947, New York City faced an epidemic crisis. Eugene LaBar, a rug importer arriving from Mexico, had arrived in the city, bringing with him the deadly smallpox virus. He stumbled off a bus, complaining of fever and a headache, and soon died in a Midtown Hospital, but not before he had infected a dozen passers-by. The damage was already done; for the first time in decades, smallpox stalked the streets of New York. The city's health authorities acted quickly to isolate sufferers and contain the virus, enacting a free vaccination campaign that saw over six million New Yorkers immunised against smallpox. Thanks to their swift response, the virus was contained with minimal casualties. The outbreak, nevertheless, must have left an indelible mark, for several years later it was followed by two similarly-themed film noir thrillers in which doctors must track down a single contagious carrier in a city of millions: Elia Kazan's 'Panic in the Streets (1950)' and Earl McEvoy's lower-budget 'The Killer That Stalked New York (1950).'McEvoy's film unfolds in an unglamorous docu-drama style. Reed Hadley's narration sounds as though it was plucked straight from a newsreel, reciting facts as if reading off the official police transcript. This technique does feel a little cheap at times, but fortunately the narration is largely restricted to the film's bookends, as well as providing some explanatory filler during breaks in the plot. The "killer" stalking New York, in this story, is not a rug importer from Mexico, but beautiful diamond smuggler Sheila Bennet (Evelyn Keyes), who has just arrived from Cuba. Within days, Sheila has two parties independently pursuing her: a treasury agent (Barry Kelley) looking to arrest her for smuggling crimes, and a team of doctors (led by William Bishop) who have identified her as the source of the smallpox outbreak. As in 'Panic in the Streets,' an otherwise routine manhunt is given a heightened sense of urgency, particularly when those in pursuit initially have no idea as to the identity or appearance of their suspect.'The Killer That Stalked New York,' for the most part, manages to sidestep its low production budget. Aside from a select few lines of dialogue ("we have to stop it!" exclaims Dr. Wood at one point, as though coming to a difficult decision), the filmmakers and cast members allow the story to unfold in a realistic, engrossing fashion. Indeed, in this regard, the low budget quite possibly aids the film's intentions, necessitating a documentary style that adds to the immediacy of the outbreak scenario. Evelyn Keyes is excellent in the leading role, showing obstinate resilience in the face of unimaginable torment; by the film's end, she appears so brutally incapacitated by her illness that it's almost painful to look at her face. Aside from the virus, Charles Korvin is the main villain of the piece, as Sheila's greedy and adulterous husband who, rest assured, gets everything that's coming to him. And if all nurses looked like Dorothy Malone, perhaps catching smallpox wouldn't seem like such a bad break, after all.

This film about a woman who returns from Cuba to New York City with both smuggled diamonds and smallpox is a fairly typical film-noirish melodrama of the late 40's/early 50's. Will the police and Health Department officials find her in time to save NYC from an epidemic? The film has all the elements one expects from this type of film: great black and white cinematography, romantic subplots, over-the-top shady characters (one played by Jim Backus, "Mr. Howell" of "Gilligan's Island" fame) and too-good-to-be-true good guys, and great New York locations. It also has a hammy narration and some corny dialogue, but it is a fairly suspenseful and generally fun way to spend 75 minutes.However, the situation which probably seemed like far-fetched (but plausible) fiction in 1950, seems frighteningly possible today. The anthrax attacks of 2001, the fears of weaponized smallpox being used by terrorists, the concerns about vaccinations and the amount and safety of vaccines, the inability of governmental agencies to work together and share information effectively all come to mind when one watches this film. This gives it a bit more resonance today than other more dated noirish "chase" films of the same era.Overall, only a pretty good film but definitely worth a watch for the subject matter and its relevance to today's fears about bio-terrorism.