Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Crappy film

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

*** 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.

Evelyn Keyes is a killer, but she doesn't know it. With the narration at the beginning of the film to the revelation that she actually is a carrier of the smallpox disease, the viewer can tell this is going to be rather over-the-top. I went into this knowing nothing, but expecting a lot, with a title like that. Then from the narration telling us, she didn't know she was a killer, I thought maybe she had split personalities or something to that effect. When it became obvious she had smallpox, I was disappointed to say the least. No one today can know why this was made. Maybe a writer got an idea from a real incident. Maybe this was to educate people about the seriousness of getting vaccinated. Whatever the reason and despite all the earnest, sincere and well-meaning intentions, this film doesn't really age well. It comes across hokey and overblown with some of the supporting cast overacting and overly dramatic writing. But while I was disappointed in the content of the film, I have to admit it gets your attention, makes the viewers care about Evelyn and keeps the action moving fairly quickly. But, on the whole, today it seems too campy to be taken seriously, if it was trying to be. "The Killer That Stalked New York" can be found on the Bad Girls of Film Noir, Volume 1 DVD set. Being on that set, it might just fit right in, with other over-the-top movies, but its treatment of the movie's subject matter seems to me to be counterproductive. That's the only reason I'm hard on it. Otherwise, sit back and bask in who will be the next victim of the smallpox disease, as carried by Evelyn Keyes. See?!

Killer That Stalked New York, The (1950) ** 1/2 (out of 4) B-budget noir about a female diamond smuggler (Evelyn Keyes) who is trying to sneak some priceless diamonds into NYC from Cuba. While the police are tracking her down they learn that the woman also has smallpox, which threatens the entire city. The story here is a very interesting one but sadly the film never manages to do anything with it. The film really doesn't know if it wants to settle on the diamond story or the smallpox one and the two really don't mix well together. The biggest problem is the direction, which is also all over the place. With a story like this you'd expect some sort of tension or suspense but none never happens. Keyes is pretty good in her role but the screenplay really doesn't do her any justice as our feelings for her character are never really made clear. Charles Korvin, William Bishop and Dorothy Malone round out the cast. The ending is pretty good and picks the film up a bit but that's about all there is.

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.