Midnight Oil:Movies and More

“Panic in the Streets” (1950) starring Richard Widmark and Jack Palance as directed by Elia Kazan, makes for a scary combination. I’m not sure which one you should take your chances on; the menace of the totally deadly pneumonic plague (a form of the Black Plague) or the totally creepy Jack Palance as the villain. The hero, Richard Widmark, as Lieutenant Commander Clint Reed, runs around New Orleans with his syringe, prepared to do battle with either culprit. (Apparently, it is true that the totally deadly effects of pneumonic plague can be forestalled with a dose of antibiotics within 24 hours.) This highly potent concoction of gangsters, bioterrorism, post-war anxieties with a bit of romance thrown in, thanks to Barbara Bel Geddes as the good doctor’s wife, makes it a highly watchable film more than 50 years later. It may not be Elia Kazan’s best film ever, but it’s worth a look. And it’s so comforting in this crazy post-SARS world of ours to think that there is some nice, upstanding medical man out there who has everything under control with his syringe, if he could just get all those nasty miscreants rounded up.

<<Back to Midnight Oil main journal

>>On to "Who's Directing Your Life?"

Are you ready to "roll up your sleeve"? See the video excerpt from "Panic in the Streets" (1950)