Oslo Jargo (Bartok Kinski) *** This review may contain spoilers *** It isn't a film-noir, more of a Drama or Thriller.The Killer That Stalked New York (1950) plays off as some turgid 1950's health department warning to the citizens of America that smallpox is on the loose. It starts off with a rough-voiced narrator giving us the goods on some dame who smuggled in diamonds from Cuba. Well, it seems she picked up something else, the smallpox. She visits many places and then starts an epidemic in Manhattan. The health department, staffed by idiots it seems and cantankerous old men who complain constantly, are trying to send flatfoot health department investigators to find out where it started from, I don't know why. Plus they want to inoculate each and every person in the five boroughs. These folks were geniuses.One interesting thing is for architecture buffs to look out for the ambiance, it was filmed both in New York City and Los Angeles, California. She arrives to the Pennsylvania Station (1910–63) in Manhattan, but the interiors don't look anything like it. it was probably a station in Los Angeles.Put in a pestiferous T-man (treasury agent) looking for the dame and a few stupid comments from gawkers and this makes for an even worse picture.They add some crime element to the film, with the dame who smuggled in diamonds from Cuba and her husband who double-crossed her. There's plenty of sanctimonious narration from the rough-voiced narrator and those 1950's "thank you" to all the departments involved ending credits.In all, it's really not that good, Panic in the Streets (1950) directed by Elia Kazan with Richard Widmark and Jack Palance, which had a similar story, did it much better.You'll recognize plenty of faces from TV and film.

Neil Doyle THE KILLER THAT STALKED NEW YORK is small pox. The woman who has it is EVELYN KEYES, whose bleached blonde hair and harsh unflattering make-up makes her look a far cry from the cutie she played in THE JOLSON STORY. She gives a chilling performance as a woman stiffed by her boyfriend (CHARLES KORVIN), both of them diamond smugglers unaware that in Cuba she picked up the deadly smallpox disease.The good supporting cast includes WILLIAM BISHOP, WHIT BISSELL, RICHARD EGAN, DOROTHY MALONE, LOLA ALBRIGHT, and JIM BACKUS. It's photographed in film noir documentary style with voice-over narration, as many films of the '40s and '50s were--similar, in fact, to PANIC IN THE STREETS, another thriller with Jack Palance as the deadly carrier.It's fast paced, with never a wasted moment of time in telling a story that runs one hour and nineteen minutes. Miss Keyes demonstrates that she was a much more talented actress than anyone ever suspected, with hidden depths in her portrait of a vengeful woman.Well worth watching.

sol1218 (Some Spoilers) Sweeping into New York City on a first-class railroad car a killer who doesn't kill with a gun or knife or club but just with his,or it's, touch and breath. A killer that's as old, or even older, then man himself. That killer has a name it's know the world over as smallpox.Arriving in New York one cold November afternoon the killer hidden inside of Sheila Bennet, Evelyn Keyes, and like a Trojen Horse it waits until the opportunity presents itself. Then like a ticking time bomb with it's fuse set off explodes throughout the length and breath of the city.Sheila knows that she's being followed by a U.S Customs officer who's been on her tail since she came back to the US from the Island nation of Cuba. Having smuggled $50,000.00 of illegal uncut diamonds she had to be careful in getting them to her husband Matt, Charles Korvin, to be cut and sold to unsuspecting jewelers in the city. Mailing the diamonds ahead of time Sheila knows that if caught the diamonds won't be found on her. What she doesn't know is that Matt is two timing her by having an affair with her kid sister Francie, Lola Albrght. Even worse he plans to check out of town with the diamonds leaving her as well as Francie holding the bag.Even though we know right from the start of Sheila's deathly condition it doesn't really come to the surface until much later in the movie.The first half of "The Killer that stalked New York" is a crime suspense/drama with the U.S Customs officials and NYC police looking for the stolen diamonds. As Sheila starts to get sick and begins to infect everyone whom she comes in contact with the film reaches the point of a mass panic in the streets type horror movie. Both the police and custom officials together with members of the city's Health Depertment race against the clock to find Sheila before she infects the entire city of New York with the deadly smallpox infection that she's carrying. Sheila finding out from Matt's boss Willie Dennis,Jim Backus,that he quit his job as a nightclub piano player and that he was having an affair with Francie shocks her into the realization to what a heel he is.Confronting Francie at her apartment it turns out that Matt not only stiffed Shelia but her sister as well. Which later leads the guilt-ridden Francie to take her own life. On the run and not knowing that she's infected with smallpox Sheila goes to her brother Sid (With Bissell),who manages a flop-house on the Bowery, to find a place to stay. Only too late does Sheila, and Sid, find out the the stolen diamonds is the last of her problems. Knowing that she's dying Sheila goes to the office of jeweler Arnold Moss, Art Smith, knowing that sleaze-ball of a husband Matt, who ended up beating old man Moss into a bloody pulp, is going to be there to exact vengeance on him.Doucmentry-type drama, based on a true story, with striking black and white on-location photography makes this movie about the horrors of unseen and deadly smallpox unleashed on a unsuspecting public well worth watching.

banse From 1950 comes a neat thriller about a couple smuggling diamonds from abroad and also the contagious disease smallpox. Evelyn Keyes pulls out all stops as the essential victim of this film-noir. Once back in the United States she is not aware that she could be spreading the disease on everyone and everything she comes in contact with. Eventually she is pursued and must be stopped before an epidemic occurs. Other than Keyes striking performance there is good support from villainous Charles Korvin, William Bishop, Dorothy Malone, Lola Albright and Whit Bissell. The finale is a humdinger with Miss Keyes on the ledge of a building with spotlights and hundreds of spectators below. A good B flick!