VividSimon Simply Perfect

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

SnoopyStyle In New Orleans, Blackie (Jack Palance) and his thugs attack and kill a sick man who walked out of his game after winning his money. The coroner finds something suspicious and calls in Dr. Clinton Reed (Richard Widmark). He declares it the extremely contagious pneumonic plague. He faces opposition as he tries to raise the alarm.This is a rough and meandering thriller. The most compelling thing about the movie is the title. It's a lot of cop and robber procedural. Jack Palance is a good ruffian when he's on the screen. I like the dark gritty opening. Richard Widmark is a solid tough guy. None of the other actors are quite as striking. I don't find the investigation that compelling. It would be better if lots of people start dropping dead. The real world locations are great but the movie isn't terribly thrilling.

Leofwine_draca PANIC IN THE STREETS is the sort of film that could do with a modern-day remake, because the story is so fantastic and would work in any period. It tells of a dedicated detective who's hot on the trail of a criminal gang who, unbeknownst to themselves, are infected with the deadly bubonic plague virus. The detective must juggle the media - he doesn't want the story to come out due to the panic it'll cause - alongside his frightened wife and pursuit of the gang if he wants to prevent an epidemic.The only thing that works against this film is the obviously low budget, which means it lacks the finesse of, say, a Fritz Lang thriller from the period. It still does the job and ably so, with few slow spots and plenty of interest in the narrative. Richard Widmark proves a workable hero here, but he's outshone by the actors playing the criminal gang. The likes of Zero Mostel are good, but it's Jack Palance (in his debut role) who REALLY shines as the hostile gang leader. Palance is frightening, really frightening, one of those true movie psychos.PANIC IN THE STREETS incorporates plenty of suspense and even a little action into its storyline, particularly as we head towards the climax and the stakes are raised. There's a great, blackly comic set-piece involving the movement of a bedridden guy down a fire escape, plus an all-out chase at the climax which works really well. All in all this is a film noir that's well worth tracking down.

Rodrigo Amaro 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

Jay Raskin So far nobody has mentioned the great cinematography by Joseph MacDonald. MacDonald was nominated for 3 Oscars in his 27 year career, but unfortunately never won one. This is sad because nearly all the scenes and shots in all his films, which include "Mirage" "Call Northside 777" and "The Sand Pebbles," are beautifully lit and composed. Yet, they are not flashy and do not dominate the action, so you concentrate on the characters and the story. Here, especially, lighting these scenes on location at night must have been hell with the slow film speeds of the film stocks of that period. yet the results are as deep focus and crisp as anything that Greg Toland did on a comfortable sound stage in Hollywood. Ironically, the film did receive an Oscar for the writing. Much of the script appears to have been improvised and the story itself is pretty silly and absurdly done. Richard Widmark is a doctor trying to prevent a panic, but everywhere he goes, city hall, the police station, a union hiring hall, a ship, he unwittingly causes a panic. Psycho-Killer Jack Palance may kill you, but he's an easy touch for money. When a beautiful prostitute asks him for $100 (the equivalent of $1000, today), he doesn't hesitate. When a short newspaper seller gives him some information, he insists on giving money to him, although, he doesn't want it. When a doctor tells him that the man he is trying to kill is sick and needs an expensive sanitarium, Palance quickly offers the money. He may be a killer, but he sure is generous.This was the fifth starring roles for Barbara Bel Geddes and Richard Widmark who both started starring in films in 1947, four years before. Widmark would star in some 50 more movies over the next 40 years. Bel Geddes also would work 40 more years, but only starred in five more films. She did have a great success starring in the hit television series "Dallas" from 1978-1990. They are well cast, as are Zero Mostel as a funny, bad guy henchman, and Paul Douglas as a tired and tough Police Detective.This movie has scenes that look forward to "On the Waterfront" (seagulls on the dock) and "Streetcar Named Desire." (the card game). Yet it lacks the dramatic power of those two films. I suggest that this is because the detective story is quite botched. If it was not for a serendipitous perceptive nurse. Widmark and Douglas would still be looking for the plague victim.Kazan doesn't seem to mind his characters changing their minds and contradicting themselves between scenes and sometimes within scenes. The unit of intensity for Kazan is the scene and each scene has intensity whether it fits in with the rest of the scenes in a sequence or not. We may suspect that this style comes about because he had raised such high expectations with his previous films. Yet these films were now under suspicion for their opening liberal ideology. While being democratic and giving the people of New Orleans a chance to be themselves in many scenes, Kazan balances their coolness with melodramatic theatricality on the part of the professional actors. Kazan is still with the ordinary masses but his actors are now clashing openly with the ordinary masses. Kazan is starting to distrust the masses.One senses that HUAC was rising in the background and Kazan as a former communist must have felt himself in the cross-hairs. There is a sense of panic underneath this film. The week that the film opened June 12, 1950, John Howard Lawson and Douglas Trumbo of the Hollywood Ten began serving their prison sentences. Kazan must have known that he would soon face a choice between his career and his politics. Like the Richard Widmark character, he knows better than the masses and doesn't trust them. We may suggest a reading of the film, wherein The plague Kazan is talking about is communism and Kazan himself is the sick immigrant who carried it to America from Europe. The inconsistencies of the characters reflect his own inconsistencies.