One of the games going around since the beginning of the pandemic involves people recommending old movies that have acquired renewed resonance in these Covid-19 times – not necessarily because they presciently captured today’s reality, but because some of their elements and themes are fascinating to watch (or rewatch) in the current mindframe… Many film buffs have poignantly suggested Elia Kazan’s Panic in the Streets, but, for my money, the noirs that have made for a more rewarding viewing experience in this context have been Irving Lerner’s City of Fear and Earl McEvoy’s The Killer That Stalked New York. They’re both terrific, beautifully shot thrillers that keep cutting between deadly carriers unknowingly contaminating those around them and the authorities’ efforts to track down and contain the contamination while deciding how much information to withhold from the public. (Curiously, in each case the agents of death and their victims are the liveliest characters in the picture while the pragmatic preservers of life are the ones who feel almost dead inside.) City of Fear is more tightly written, for sure, and it has one hell of a poster. Yet The Killer That Stalked New York jumps from hardboiled drama to public service announcement and back, which makes it quite an original piece. Plus, so much of it revolves around vaccination that it actually feels like the movie is talking to the present at some points!
And speaking of old-school crime fiction, since the ‘law & order’ public discourse on the campaign trail has become so cartoony, here is your crime-fighting reminder that comics can be awesome:
