Evelyn Keyes in "The Killer That Stalked New York" (1950) - feat. Dorothy Malone & Jim Backus

Arriving at New York City's Pennsylvania Station after a trip to Cuba, Sheila Bennet (Evelyn Keyes), who is smuggling $50,000 worth of diamonds into the country, realizes she is being followed by the authorities. She mails the diamonds to her husband, Matt Krane (Charles Korvin), instead of carrying them around, and then tries to shake the Treasury agent (Barry Kelley) following her.

Feeling sick, Sheila nearly faints on the street, so a police officer (Harry Shannon) takes her to a local clinic. While there, she encounters a little girl and inadvertently infects her. Sheila is misdiagnosed as having a common cold, and she leaves and returns home. After the girl is admitted to the hospital, she is found to have smallpox.

Meanwhile, Matt has been cheating on Sheila with her sister, Francie (Lola Albright), and then attempts to take off without either of them when the diamonds finally arrive through the mail. However, the fence cannot buy the diamonds because the police are searching for them. Matt will have to wait for ten days for the cash, so he cannot leave New York. Sheila confronts Francie, who kills herself afterward due to Matt's betrayal of them both. This gives Sheila more reason to get revenge on him.

Finding a growing number of smallpox victims, city officials decide to vaccinate everyone in New York to prevent an epidemic, but quickly run out of serum. This causes a panic in the city. Tracking the victims, agents realize that the disease carrier and the diamond smuggler are one and the same. However, an increasingly sick Sheila continues to elude capture. Still unaware that she has smallpox, she returns to the doctor at the clinic to get more medicine. The doctor explains her illness and tries to talk her into turning herself in, but she shoots him in the arm and escapes.

Sheila eventually catches up with Matt, who tries to escape from the police, but falls from a building ledge to his death. Sheila nearly attempts to drop herself from the ledge, until the doctor tells her the little girl she met had died. Sheila turns herself in and, before succumbing to the disease, provides authorities information on those she had contacted.

The film ends with the following written statement: "To the men and women of public health--the first line of defense between mankind and disease. We gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of the departments of health and hospitals of New York and Los Angeles."

A 1950 American Black & White film noir thriller film (aka "Frightened City") directed by Earl McEvoy, produced by Robert Cohn, screenplay by Harry Essex, based on "Smallpox, the Killer That Stalks New York" 1948 Cosmopolitan article by Milton Lehman, cinematography by Joseph F. Biroc, starring Evelyn Keyes, Charles Korvin, William Bishop, Dorothy Malone, Lola Albright, Barry Kelley, Carl Benton Reid, Ludwig Donath, Art Smith, Whit Bissell, Roy Roberts, Connie Gilchrist, Dan Riss, and Harry Shannon. Screen debut appearance of Beverly Washburn. Released by Columbia Pictures.

Jim Backus appears as Willie Dennis, uncredited.

Evelyn Keyes thought studio head Harry Cohn deliberately cast her in this film as payback for spurning his advances. During the filming of The Killer That Stalked New York, Keyes was involved in an affair with actor Kirk Douglas, a situation that created tension between her and studio mogul Harry Cohn. Because of his personal dislike of Douglas, Cohn forbade Keyes to invite him to the set. She sued Cohn and the studio, settled out of court, and resulted in the actress buying out her Columbia contract and going independent after completing the film.

Narrated by Reed Hadley, narrator walks us through all the ironies of modern urban epidemiology. Shot on location in a semi-documentary style in a gritty, somewhat newsreel sounding and looking style.

Reed Hadley (1911-1974), born Reed Herring in Petrolia, Texas, was an American film, television and radio actor, cast as both a villain and a hero. He starred in two television series, and was the narrator of several Department of Defense films. Hadley has a star at 6553 Hollywood Boulevard in the Television section of the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Based on the real 1946 smallpox epidemic scare, in which millions of New Yorkers were given free vaccinations without causing a panic, as described in a story taken from a 1948 Cosmopolitan magazine article.

Columbia postponed the release of this film for over six months until the end of the run of 20th Century-Fox's similarly themed picture, "Panic in the Streets" (1950).

Never a dull moment in this interesting potboiler about pneumonic plague spread by criminals. Great noir camerawork of Joseph Biroc caught how dark the city could be for someone on-the-run in this crackerjack thriller. Part film noir, and part Public Service Announcement. A fine B noir plot with a lot of character and muscle that captures the panic with a tangible sense of anxiety in every frame. How vulnerable are we, exactly?