Genre Guesstimation – The Killer That Stalked New York (1950)

The idea behind this feature (Genre Guesstimation) is for me to watch a bunch of new movies (or ones that I haven’t seen many times) from the chosen monthly GG genre in order to expand my knowledge of movies within that particular genre.

This month’s genre has been chosen by Patty of CaftanWoman.com and we will be reviewing our favorite Medical Dramas.

Please get me your submissions by the 25th of Aug by sending them to medicalpatty@movierob.net

Try to think out of the box! Great choice Patty!

Let’s see if I felt that this movie would be worthy of being in the company of my others favorite movies in the genre of Medical Dramas…..

“You gentlemen don’t seem to realize, we’re facing death.” – Mayor

Number of Times Seen – 1 (5 Aug 2020)

Brief Synopsis – After a woman with small pox begins to infect unknowing people in the city, the health department does all they can to try and find her before an epidemic hits the whole city.

My Take on it – I decided that in order to make my guest choices of the Genre for the Genre Grandeur series more personal (and expand my own personal horizons of these genres), I will take a recommendation from my guest for a film to watch for this Genre Guesstimation series.

This movie was Patty’s choice for me to watch.

When Patty suggested this movie, I thought it would be a murder mystery based on the title, yet they are actually referring to a disease which is quite clever.

This film is done quite well but the fact that its premise deals with a pandemic, made it even more relevant to watch now during the current crisis that we all are living in.

The 70 year gap since this was made doesn’t change much about an unknown epidemic that needs to be stopped.

The film unfortunately focuses more on the story line than it does n the characters themselves and they fail to develop any of them in a more realistic way that would make us care more.

Instead, it all feels far too anonymous which hurts things too much.

The plot does manage to stay thrilling and they find some intriguing ways to make things feel more suspenseful as things unfold.

The cast is ok but it’s too bad that none of them really stand out because that would have made things much more interesting and enjoyable to watch.

Bottom Line – Interesting story that is quite timely to watch now even after nearly 70 years. The characters are unfortunately not developed well enough and that hurts things a bit since it all feels far too anonymous. The premise is quite thrilling, and they find ways to make things feel even more suspenseful as things move along. The cast is fine, but none of them really stand out in order to help make it even more interesting. Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Evelyn Keyes, in her autobiography thought studio head Harry Cohn deliberately cast her in this film as payback for spurning his advances. She sued Cohn and the studio, settled out of court and was released from her contract. (From IMDB)

Genre Grandeur Worthy? – Not really. Very timely topic for today’s world, but it’s presented a bit too poorly from a production standpoint.

Rating – Globe Worthy (7/10)