The Killer that Stalked New York (1950) is a movie that has a tense plot, well-drawn characters, and a climax that was hard to see coming.
Except for the part where the movie makers explicitly tell us what to expect.
This is a clumsy ménage à troi of a fairly well done medical sleuthing story, a diamond smuggling tale featuring a conscienceless womanizer, and a documentary about the potential dangers of smallpox when vaccinations are no longer administered. The result is the ruination of the first story, the trivialization of the second, all as the third plays the part of the E. Coli that ruined dinner by killing half the diners at your birthday dinner. And it’s really a shame as a clutch of excellent actors bring the stories to life, primary being the emotional journey of a woman so in love she’s blind to the fatal flaws of her husband. He’s convinced her to smuggle diamonds out of Cuba; along with the diamonds she brings smallpox, and soon people are dying in her wake.
His betrayal of her, seducing her sister while she was away, transforms that love to burning hate, so hot that even the smallpox that tries to drag her into Hell is impotent in the face of her fury; she hangs on as her beautiful face deteriorates, waiting for her husband to reappear so she can have her revenge. Meanwhile, she’s avoiding the Customs Inspectors who’ve trailed her from Cuba, as well as the Health Department workers desperate to find the source of the smallpox, as it appears at apparently random spots throughout the city. Immunizing an entire city is their Herculean task if they can’t find her, so they spare no effort on either vector: as this is a scratch on vaccine, rather than injected, even the sewing machine companies are requested to chip in.
I’ve made clear my disappointment with the movie. But there are two facets I found interesting.
First, even in a movie from 1950 we see an appearance by the anti-vaccination crowd. Brief and not intrinsic to the story, but it provides verisimilitude. The most basic objection is given: “You’re not going to inject germs into my family!” the man snarls at the health worker before slamming the door in his face. It’s an objection which makes intuitive sense to those with no familiarity with the workings of vaccines and the body’s immune system, and a reminder that we are all responsible for having a grasp of these high level concepts.
Second, a message about the role and efficacy of government. Over the last thirty years, if not more, government as an institution has been under attack. We have all seen the humor about government workers, waste, impotency, etc, abetted by the occasional true horror story. These horror stories are the exceptions, not the story itself, and yet there has been a sustained effort to assert the exceptions are the entire story. But anyone who has seriously studied the role of government knows that Reagan’s politically motivated statement, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” was a miserable lie that has done more damage than we can know. It has motivated the reduction in budgets until programs no longer function, slowed reaction times when moments count (just think Hurricane Katrina), and inspired distrust of a government trying to safeguard a country from enemies foreign and domestic, human and non-human, even animated and non-animated.
But when the Mayor of New York is presented with the problem of immunizing an entire city, there is no shilly shallying, nor pushing the decision off, or worrying about money. We get to see government performing at the moment of crisis, as only a government really can:
Mayor: “How much money do you need?”
Doctor: “A million.”
“You got it. What else do you need?”
etc. And then later, when informed that vaccine supplies are exhausted, the heads of the vaccine supply companies are brought to the Mayor’s office.
“How many can you supply?”
“Maybe 20,000 units.”
“It’s 30,000. And you, sir, how many can you supply? 30,000, that’s how many you’ll supply. And you?”
“But Mayor, we cannot supply that many, it’s not possible!”
“Why?”
“Because they must be individually packaged! It’s medical regulations!”
“Ignore the regulations. Deliver them in beer bottles, we have lots of those. And these don’t need to be injected, right? Just scratched on? [turns to an assistant.] Call the sewing machine companies, have them send all their needles. We’ll sterilize them.”
No mucking about with private sector perogatives. People are dying, and the Mayor, as the top political dog, knows who to talk to and when to tell them they either deliver or we all die. It’s a reminder that the government sector is neither evil, trivial, nor an inevitable dunghill of incompetence and corruption. In moments of emergency, it supplies the coordination, authority, and manpower to safeguard the disorganized, poorly informed citizenry from threats outside of the usual realms of danger. Of all the themes of this movie, that might be the most important.
