The Killer That Stalked New York (AKA: Frightened City) is directed by Earl McEvoy and adapted to screenplay by Harry Essex from a story by Milton Lehman. It stars Evelyn Keyes, Charles Korvin, William Bishop, Dorothy Malone and Lola Albright. Music is by Hans Salter and cinematography by Joseph Biroc.As the Police search for a diamond smuggler flown in from Cuba, doctors frantically trawl through an unprotected New York for a smallpox carrier, unaware that it is in fact the same person.The Blonde Death!Based on a real life incident the year previously, The Killer That Stalked New York is a very efficient thriller that has earned the right to be viewed now on its own terms. Comparisons are inevitably drawn with Panic in the Streets, the Elia Kazan film from the same year that deals in the same premise as here, but don't let anybody try and convince you otherwise, McEvoy's movie isn't in the same class. There is a reason Columbia Pictures delayed the release of "Killer" for six months. That said...It's a tautly constructed movie by McEvoy, decently performed by the cast (Keyes especially impressive carrying the film) and the documentary like approach to the piece works very much in its favour; even if Reed Hadley's stentorian narration is rather intrusive to the escalating drama. Bonus as well comes from having Biroc on photography duties, it's not so much about chiaroscuro techniques, in fact we don't really see the best noir visuals until the last fifteen minutes, but more about dripping a foreboding atmosphere over the New York City locales. As poor Sheila stumbles through the city, her alienation and disorientation is deftly brought out of the screen by the one time Oscar winner (The Towering Inferno).The race against time medical aspects of the drama hold the attention span well, we are constantly wondering who is going to succumb to "the blonde death" next? Though this core theme of the picture comes at the cost of narrative intrigue elsewhere, for instance there's infidelity in the mix involving our leading lady, but it barely registers and poor Lola Albright, playing a character of much potential, gets shunted out the way to be replaced by some more medical peril announced by Hadley's public service voice! As efficient as the film is, and it's easily recommended to the noir crowd, much more could have been made of this story.B picture by name, B picture by nature, but hugely enjoyable in that sweaty time filling way. 6.5/10

Evelyn Keyes is a diamond smuggler who smuggles in death in the form of smallpox in "The Killer that Stalked New York," a 1950 noir also starring Charles Korvin, William Bishop, Jim Backus, Dorothy Malone, Lola Albright, and Ludwig Donath.Keyes plays Sheila Bennet, who mails diamonds back to her cheating husband (Korvin) from Cuba, and then returns to him in New York. Unfortunately, he's involved with Sheila's sister (Albright), so he sends her to a hotel. Feeling ill, she seeks medical care from a doctor (Bishop). In the waiting room, she meets a little girl who later develops smallpox. Sheila was incorrectly diagnosed and is now spreading the disease all over town while the city attempts to find the carrier.This is a kind of B version of "Panic in the Streets" and not as good, but it is an effective noir with a fine performance by Keyes as a desperate woman with a will to keep going no matter what.Though Keyes was good-looking and talented, her off-screen exploits with the men in her life, as well as her opinions of Hollywood, are more well-known than her film roles, which were mostly in B movies. The great irony of her career is that she's best known for her smallest role, Suellen O'Hara in "Gone with the Wind." "The Killer that Stalked New York" is a good showcase of her abilities.

There must have been a sale on this storyline back in the 40's. An epidemic threatens New York (it's always New York) and nobody takes it seriously. Some might say that Richard Widmark and Jack Palance did it better in Panic in the Streets, but I disagree.There is always something about these Poverty Row productions that really touch a nerve. The production values are never that polished and the acting is a little rough around the edges, but that is the very reason I think this movie and those like it are effective. Rough, grainy, edgy. And the cast. All 2nd stringers or A list actors past their prime. No egos here. These folks were happy to get the work. Whit Bissell, Carl Benton Reid, Jim Backus, Arthur Space, Charles Korvin, and the melodious voice of Reed Hadley flowing in the background like crude oil. By the way, I've been in the hospital a couple of times; how come my nurses never looked like Dorothy Malone? In these kind of movies they don't bother much with make-up and hair, but they really managed to turn Evelyn Keyes into a hag. Or maybe they just skipped the make-up and hair altogether. Anyway, it was pretty effective. She plays a lovesick jewel smuggler who picks up a case of Small Pox in Cuba while smuggling jewels back for ultra-villain Charles Korvin (who is boffing her sister in the meantime). You got the Customs Agents looking for her because of the jewels, and the Health Department looking for her because she's about to de-populate New York. No 4th Amendment rights here. Everybody gets hassled.You gotta have the right attitude to enjoy a movie like this. I have a brother who scrutinizes movies to death. If they don't hold up to his Orson Wellian standards, he bombs them unmercifully. They must have the directorial excellence of a David Lean movie, the score of Wolfgang von Korngold, the Sound and Art of Douglas Shearer and Cedric Gibbons respectively. This ain't it.But I have the right attitude, and if you do as well, you'll love this movie.

(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.