Panic in the Streets (1950)

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The victim of a gangland killing in New Orleans is discovered to be carrying the plague. Medical officer Clinton Reed (Richard Widmark) begins a desperate race against time to stop an epidemic that would wipe out the city.

Film noir, a classic film style of the `40s and `50s, is noted for its dark themes, stark camera angles and high-contrast lighting. Comprising many of Hollywood`s finest films, film noir tells realistic stories about crime, mystery, femme fatales and moral conflict.

In this suspenseful melodrama, a bullet-ridden corpse turns up in the water off the New Orleans docks. To the police, he`s a John Doe...until a public health doctor (Richard Widmark) discovers he carries a virulent strain of bubonic plague. Hundreds of officers are mobilized to track down the killers and all who had contact with the dead man in a desperate race against the clock before the highly contagious disease spreads far beyond the port area and puts the entire country in peril.