Panic in the Streets (1950)

Laying dead in a gutter on the New Orleans waterfront is an illegal alien carrying bubonic plague contracted from a rat-infested ship. Spreading the deadly disease is a band of rodent-like, two-bit hoodlums led by psychopath JACK PALANCE ('City Slickers').

RICHARD WIDMARK ('Pickup On South Street') stars as a medical officer forced to descend into the dockside underworld with only 48 hours to track down the plague-exposed thug before the disease grows into a full-blown deadly epidemic!