Panic in the Streets (film)

Panic in the Streets is a 1950 film noir directed by Elia Kazan. It was shot exclusively on location in New Orleans, Louisiana and features numerous New Orleans citizens in speaking and nonspeaking roles.

After brawling over a card game in the wharf area of New Orleans, a man named Kochak Lewis Charles, suffering visibly from a flulike illness, is killed by gangster Blackie Jack Palance and his two flunkies, Kochaks cousin Poldi Guy Thomajan and a man named Fitch Zero Mostel. They leave the body on the docks, and later when the dead man, who carries no identification, is brought to the morgue, the coroner grows suspicious about the bacteria present in his blood and calls his superior, Dr. Clinton Reed Richard Widmark, a Lt. Cmdr. doctor working for the U.S. Public Health Service. Reed is enjoying a rare day off with his wife Nancy Barbara Bel Geddes and their son Tommy Tommy Rettig, but decides to inspect the body.After careful examination, he determines that Kochak had pneumonic plague, the pulmonary version of bubonic plague. Reed springs into action, insisting that everyone who came into contact with the body be inoculated. He also orders that the dead mans identity be determined, as well as his comings and goings during the previous few days. Reed meets with people from the mayors office, the police commissioner and other city officials, but they are skeptical of his claims. Eventually, however, his impassioned pleas convince them that they have fortyeight hours to save New Orleans from the plague. Reed must also convince police Captain Warren Paul Douglas and the others that the press must not be notified, because report of a plague would spread mass panic. ........

Source: Wikipedia