DIRECTED BY

Elia Kazan

STARRING

Richard Widmark

Paul Douglas

Barbara Bel Geddes

Jack Palance

Something should�ve been done to make the first half of the film more interesting, as its verbose meetings between different factions of the police force and Dr. Reed (Widmark) veers a little on the boring side. The film alternates between how these guys are dealing with the possibility of an epidemic and the criminals who are harboring it. Maybe it would�ve been a little more interesting had the writers decided to have this information somehow revealed to the public, although it never is � so the �panic� of the title is never really conveyed.

Kazan�s direction is amazingly minimalistic here � his camera simply lingers upon conversations and follows its subjects with very few cuts within scenes. He probably could�ve driven his direction a little more, or simply condensed the film. Nonetheless, the chiseled-faced Jack Palance gives a broodingly intense performance as the relentless criminal Blackie and the film�s final chase sequence is a great one, beginning with the hilariously surprising sight of Blackie tossing Poldi off of a stairwell and culminating with the appropriately hopeless sight of Blackie attempting to scale the rope of a ship � we all know he�s doomed either way.

- Grant Patten