After brawling over a card game in the wharf area of New Orleans, a man named Kochak, suffering visibly from a flu-like illness, is killed by gangster Blackie and his two flunkies, Kochak's cousin Poldi and a man named Fitch. They leave the body on the docks, and later when the dead man, who carries no identification, is brought to the morgue, the coroner grows suspicious about the bacteria present in his blood and calls Lieutenant Commander Clinton Reed, a doctor and commissioned corpsofficer of the U.S. Public Health Service. Reed is enjoying a rare day off with his wife Nancy and their son Tommy, but decides to inspect the body.
After careful examination, he determines that Kochak had "pneumonic plague," the pulmonary version of the extremely dangerous deadly contagious bubonic plague. Lieutenant Commander Reed having medical knowledge and experience, springs into action, insisting that everyone who came into contact with the body be inoculated. He also orders that the dead man's identity be traced to determine as well as his comings and goings and anyone else in contact with him during the previous few days. Reed meets with people from the New Orleans Mayor's office, the police commissioner and other city police and public health officials, but they are inexperienced and unfortunately stupidly skeptical of his claims. Eventually, however, his impassioned pleas convince them that they have forty-eight hours to save New Orleans from the plague. Reed must also convince Police Detective Captain Tom Warren who is assigned to the case and the others that the press must not be notified, because previous experiences in other cases told them that report of a plague would spread mass panic and riots and make it far more difficult to search and find the infected line of people.
The New Orleans police and medical / public health professionals investigation group discuss how to deal with public safety in the possible pandemic emergency in the 1950 film "Panic in the Streets"..
Detective Warren and his men begin to interview Slavic immigrants, as it has been determined by autopsy and scientific evidence testing the blood, that the body may be of Armenian, Czech or mixed blood descent (in this 1950s era of pre - DNA biological heredity knowledge). Burdened by the knowledge that the massive investigation despite their best efforts, has little chance of success (like old saying of "finding a needle in a haystack"), Lt. Cmdr. Reed accuses Police Captain Warren of not taking the threat seriously enough. In turn, Warren admits that he thinks Officer Reed is driven and ambitious and trying to use the situation to further his career. Reed, angry, decides to take matters into his own hands and, acting on a hunch that the man may have entered the city's river port illegally, goes to the nearby National Maritime Union's hiring hall and passes out copies of the dead man's picture among the seamen / sailors. Although the workers tell Officer Reed that seamen never talk, he still goes to a café next door hoping to find that someone will come forward with a tip. Eventually a young woman shows up and takes Reed to see her friend Charlie, who reluctantly admits that he worked aboard the freighter ship, the S.S. Nile Queen, upon which the already ill man was smuggled.
Meanwhile, Fitch, who was questioned by Warren but claimed to know nothing, goes to the crook Blackie and warns him about the investigation. Blackie plans to get out of town, but begins to suspect that his sidekick Poldi received expensive smuggled goods from Kochak, explaining the police's intense investigation of the man's murder. Reed and Warren, (who is now convinced of Reed's integrity), go to the steamship freighter "Nile Queen" and convince the crew to talk by telling them that they will die if the sick man was indeed on their ship. After carrying up a sick cook from the hold, the seamen then permit Reed and Warren to inoculate and question them, revealing in the process that Kochak boarded at Oran in North Africa and was fond of shish kebab. With this lead, Reed and Warren canvas the city's Greek restaurants, and just after they leave one such establishment, Blackie arrives to meet his partner Poldi, who is now very ill. A short time later, Reed receives word that a woman, Rita, has died of the fever and realizes that she was the wife of the Greek restaurant proprietor John Mefaris that he repeatedly questioned before and who apparently had earlier lied about having served food to Kochak and hidden the truth. And now his wife is dead because she told him to lie to the detectives and say he knew nothing.
Reed returns back to headquarters to discover that a muckraking investigative newspaper reporter is asking questions about the unusual situation which seems out of control and is threatening to break the story that a pathogenic bacteria is endangering the city. Officer Reed is now impressed when the deeply committed yet unorthodox police detective caption Warren resorts to old-fashioned strong-arm methods and throws the reporter into jail to keep his mouth shut and quiet. Late in the evening, a beleaguered Reed returns home to his family for a cup of coffee and his wife announces that she is pregnant. She then tries to restore her husband's flagging self-confidence and lift up his spirits.
A few hours later, Reed and Warren learn that the New Orleans mayor is angry about their treatment of the newspaper reporter and his complaints about press freedom.. The reporter, who has been released, announces that the story will appear in tomorrow's morning paper hitting the streets in four hours, giving Reed and Warren only a little more little time to find their man. Meanwhile, Blackie goes to Poldi's room and tries to force him to reveal information about some smuggled goods, but the dying Poldi is now sick and delirious and only rants nonsensically. Blackie then brings in his own doctor and tells Poldi's grandmother that they will take care of him. Just then, Lt. Cmdr. Reed, having been tipped off by the nurse looking after Poldi, arrives on the scene, and Blackie and Fitch, who are carrying Poldi down the outside stairs, pitch the sick man over the side railing and flee. Reed chases the two to the nearby river docks, where he tries to shout and explain to them about the plague danger. The men run desperately through depots, docks and a warehouse, and under the piers to a tied up small boat and at one point, Capt. Warren shoots and injures Blackie, preventing him from shooting Reed in turn. Blackie accidentally shoots Fitch and then wounded tries to struggle onto a docked ship pulling himself up a rope to the tied-up freighter but, bleeding and exhausted, he is unable to climb over a rat guard on the mooring line, and falls into the water. The men are finally captured and in custody heading for the hospital and jail. His work finally done, Reed heads for home, and on the way, Capt. Warren offers to give him some of the smuggled perfume that Poldi had indeed received from Kochak for Mrs. Reed. Back at his house, Reed hears the blaring radio news announces the resolution of the crisis reporting some details of the story, while a proud Nancy Reed greets her public health officer husband who was responsible for it all.
The production of Panic in the Streets underwent several rounds of edits with the effort to abide by the Motion Picture Production Code (Hays Code). Originally titled Port of Entry, the temporary script of the film was sent on November 11, 1949, to Joseph Breen, the film censor with the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America who applied the Production Code to film production. Joseph Breen himself indicated in threads of letters with Colonel Jason S. Joy, the Director of Public Relations of the 20th Century Fox, the changes needed for the script. Suggestions such as "Violet must not be suggestive of a prostitute", "We assume there will be no suggestion that the police officer is killed", and "The scene of Martinez and the mattress falling should not be too realistically gruesome," were made. On December 20, 1949, in Joy's letter responding to the suggestion of Breen, the film had been renamed Outbreak. The sensitive content of the film, especially the scenes pointed out by Breen, were not fully changed until after a of couple back and forth letters that lasted for around 3 months. Ultimately, the film was named Panic in the Streets in the final version of the synopsis on March 8, 1950. Approved by the Production Code Administration (PCA) on March 14, 1950, the film officially entered the production stage.[4]
Reception
Box office
The film failed to recover its costs at the box office which Darryl Zanuck blamed in part on location shooting. He felt if the film had been made for $850,000 it would have been profitable.[1]
Critical response
The New York Times gave the film a mixed review and wrote, "Although it is excitingly presented, Panic in the Streets misses the mark as superior melodrama because it is not without obvious, sometimes annoying exaggeration that demands more indulgence than some spectators may be willing to contribute. However, there is an electric quality to the climax staged in a warehouse on the New Orleans waterfront that should compensate for minor annoyances which come to the surface spasmodically in Panic in the Streets."[5]
Variety magazine liked the film and wrote, "This is an above-average chase meller. Tightly scripted and directed, it concerns the successful attempts to capture a couple of criminals, who are germ carriers, in order to prevent a plague and panic in a large city. The plague angle is somewhat incidental to the cops-and-bandits theme...There is vivid action, nice human touches and some bizarre moments. Jack Palance gives a sharp performance."[6]
New Orleans film critic David Lee Simmons wrote in 2005, "The film noir elements come from the movie's use of post-war German Expressionist and Italian Neo-Realist techniques. Kazan admired how the Expressionists used chiaroscuro lighting to heighten emotion, and he related to the Neo-Realists' cinéma vérité portrayals of those living on the margin of society. Panic offered him a chance to explore these styles further by experimenting with cinematography and casting real people. After working with some of the biggest stars in Hollywood– Dorothy McGuire, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Dana Andrews, Gregory Peck and Ethel Barrymore– Kazan wanted to go in the opposite direction. To suit the needs of this picture and his new approach, he recruited not only lesser stars, but also some of his rougher cronies from the New York stage scene, and on top of that several New Orleanians with varied levels of acting experience."[7]
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes retrospectively collected 24 reviews and gave the film a score of 96%, with an average rating of 7.46 out of 10.[8]
Venice Film Festival: Golden Lion, Elia Kazan; 1950.
Writers Guild of America: WGA Award, Best Written American Drama, Richard Murphy; The Robert Meltzer Award (Screenplay Dealing Most Ably with Problems of the American Scene), Richard Murphy; 1951.
Related Research Articles
Gentleman's Agreement is a 1947 American drama film based on Laura Z. Hobson's best-selling 1947 novel of the same title. It concerns a journalist who poses as a Jew to research an exposé on the widespread antisemitism in New York City and the affluent communities of New Canaan and Darien, Connecticut. It was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won three: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Director.
Detective Story is a 1951 American crime drama directed by William Wyler and starring Kirk Douglas that tells the story of one day in the lives of the various people who populate a police detective squad. The ensemble supporting cast features Eleanor Parker, William Bendix, Cathy O'Donnell, and George Macready. Both Lee Grant and Joseph Wiseman play large roles in their film debuts. The film was adapted by Robert Wyler and Philip Yordan from the 1949 play of the same name by Sidney Kingsley. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Academy Award for Best Director for Wyler, Best Actress for Parker, and Best Supporting Actress for Grant.
Darryl Francis Zanuck was an American film producer and studio executive; he earlier contributed stories for films starting in the silent era. He played a major part in the Hollywood studio system as one of its longest survivors. He produced three films that won the Academy Award for Best Picture during his tenure at 20th Century Fox.
Richard Weedt Widmark was an American film, stage, and television actor and producer.
Kiss of Death is a 1947 American film noir directed by Henry Hathaway and written by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer from a story by Eleazar Lipsky. The story revolves around an ex-con played by Victor Mature and his former partner-in-crime, Tommy Udo. The movie also starred Brian Donlevy and introduced Coleen Gray in her first billed role. The film has received critical praise since its release, with two Academy Award nominations.
Richard Darryl Zanuck was an American film producer. His 1989 film Driving Miss Daisy won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Zanuck was also instrumental in launching the career of director Steven Spielberg, who described Zanuck as a "director's producer" and "one of the most honorable and loyal men of our profession."
He Walked by Night is a 1948 American police procedural film noir directed by Alfred L. Werker and an uncredited Anthony Mann. The film, shot in semidocumentary tone, is loosely based on the real-life actions of Erwin "Machine-Gun" Walker, a former Glendale, California police department employee and World War II veteran who unleashed a crime spree of burglaries, robberies and shootouts in the Los Angeles area in 1945 and 1946.
Kent Taylor was an American actor of film and television. Taylor appeared in more than 110 films, the bulk of them B-movies in the 1930s and 1940s, although he also had roles in more prestigious studio releases, including Merrily We Go to Hell (1932), I'm No Angel (1933), Cradle Song (1933), Death Takes a Holiday (1934), Payment on Demand (1951), and Track the Man Down (1955). He had the lead role in Half Past Midnight in 1948, among a few others.
John Francis Regis Toomey was an American film and television actor.
The Mob is a 1951 American film noir crime-thriller produced by Columbia Pictures, directed by Robert Parrish, and starring Broderick Crawford. The screenplay, which was written by William Bowers, is based on the novel Waterfront by Ferguson Findley.
Emile Meyer was an American actor, usually known for tough, aggressive, authoritative characters in Hollywood films from the 1950s era, mostly in Westerns or thrillers.
Reed Hadley was an American film, television and radio actor.
John M. Pickard was an American actor who appeared primarily in television westerns.
Richard Lane was an American actor and television announcer/presenter. In movies, he played assured, fast-talking slickers: usually press agents, policemen and detectives, sometimes swindlers and frauds. He is perhaps best known to movie fans as "Inspector Farraday" in the Boston Blackie mystery-comedies. Lane also played Faraday in the first radio version of Boston Blackie, which ran on NBC from June 23, 1944 to September 15, 1944. Lane was an early arrival on television, first as a news reporter and then as a sports announcer, broadcasting wrestling and roller derby shows on KTLA-TV, mainly from the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles.
Cyrus Willard Kendall was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 140 films between 1935 and 1950. Kendall's heavy-set, square-jawed appearance and deep voice were perfect for wiseguy roles such as policemen and police chiefs, wardens, military officers, bartenders, reporters, and mobsters.
Ralph Dunn was an American film, television, and stage actor.
Francis Thomas Sullivan, known professionally as Frank Sully, was an American film actor. He appeared in over 240 films between 1934 and 1968. Today's audiences know him best as the dumb detective in the Boston Blackie features, and as the foil in many Three Stooges comedies.
John Kellogg was an American actor in film, stage and television. Some sources, including ancestry.com, state that his given name was Giles Vernon Kellogg, Jr.
Chicago Deadline is a 1949 American film noir crime film directed by Lewis Allen and starring Alan Ladd and Donna Reed.
Mister Dynamite is a 1935 American action film directed by Alan Crosland and written by Doris Malloy and Harry Clork. The film stars Edmund Lowe, Jean Dixon, Victor Varconi, Esther Ralston, Verna Hillie and Minor Watson. The film was released on April 22, 1935, by Universal Pictures.
References
1 2 Memo from Darryl F Zanuck to Elia Kazan 1 July 1952, Memo from Darryl F. Zanuck, Grove Press, 1993 p 214
↑ Production Code Administration. PANIC IN THE STREETS, 1950. Motion Picture Association of America. Production Code Administration records, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
↑ The New York Times. Film review, August 5, 1950. Last accessed: February 8, 2008.
↑ Variety. Film review, 1950. Last accessed: April 6, 2010.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
