Jack Palance

Panic in the Streets

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Dr Reed explaining that it's plague

Steve Soderbergh’s Contagion seemed to be required viewing during Covid, Panic in the Streets not so much. But Elia Kazan’s film from 1950 has much to say about epidemics, why nipping them in the bud is important, how government can be a force for good and why scepticism needs to be countered not with shrillness but facts, reason and the force of argument. All this wrapped up in a tense, noirish thriller starring Richard Widmark and handing Jack Palance the first of a long string of “mad dog” roles, which he was uniquely suited to playing. As Soderbergh, so Kazan – realism and immediacy are the key concerns. Panic in the Streets is … Read more

Sudden Fear

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Joan Crawford with her hands to her face

Joan Crawford did not do shading, subtlety or character acting. She did something much more gothic. Sudden Fear plays straight to her strengths, a “woman in peril” movie that starts out in the world of realism but slips gradually into the realm of the histrionic. In early scenes Crawford’s acting looks mummified, as if the light of naturalism had been shone on a museum artefact. Playing a writer whose latest Broadway smash is about to be staged, her Myra Hudson is meant to be a woman born rich who has nevertheless forged her own career away from daddy’s money, and become successful in her own right. And then she meets Jack Palance’s Lester … Read more

The Big Knife

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Ida Lupino and Jack Palance

1955’s The Big Knife is where a lot of people turn when they fancy another wallow in the filth and corruption of showbiz and have already done In a Lonely Place or The Sweet Smell of Success. The line-up looks promising. It’s based on a play by Clifford Odetts, who co-wrote the screenplay for In a Lonely Place with Ernest Lehman. It’s directed by Robert Aldrich, who liked to hang around in dark corners (Kiss Me Deadly, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane) and the director of photography is Ernest Laszlo, a master of dramatic lighting (Stalag 17, While the City Sleeps, Inherit the Wind). The cast is promising too. What you need … Read more