NIKKI says:After this and The Sweet Smell of Success, I think I only want to watch movies from the 1950s. This one is about a man trying to stop the spreading of the plague. Richard Widmark is a health services officer who has 48 hours to find the people responsible for the death of a grifter in New Orleans. The grifter was discovered with gunshot wounds to the chest, but he died from plague-like symptoms. Widmark wants the press left out of it lest a national scare is caused and the men he must track down disappear to Africa or somewhere and take their diseases with them.
Ooh, it's a tense one. Another before-its-time picture with rapid-fire, super-smart dialogue, and intensity to burn. Widmark is just great, and so is scary-tall Jack Palance as the heavy who'll do anything -- including tossing a dying man over a second floor banister -- to get away from the cops.
It's shot on location in New Orleans, too, with a great old-timey inside look at the city that no longer exists. I loved this one, and must watch more like it.
3.5/5
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