Curiously dull, the story of a smallpox outbreak in the city of Bath. It has a lot of potential. All these epidemiological studies have potential. But this one isn't as good as "The Killer Who Stalked New York", which is in turn not nearly as good as "Panic In The Streets." The cast is fine. No problem there. Richard Johnson is his usual, stable, doctorial self. (He was the anthropologist in "The Haunting.") Claire Bloom can hardly go wrong. She was a great Lady Anne to Olivier's Richard III. Also, she gets to take a shower here.
The rest of the supporting cast has an abundance of familiar faces who give reliable performances. There are even a few minutes of Arthur Christianson as the frazzled editor, who was the editor in "The Day The Earth Caught Fire," and who is, in fact, not an actor at all but a real-life newspaper editor. Cyril Cusack gives a sterling performance as the empathic, perceptive, phlegmatic Father McGuire. Only Judy Donlan can't seem to conquer her lines, but what do you expect from Jersey City? The location shooting is evocative too. It's Bath at Christmas time. The snow is heaped in piles within shady corners. The skies are the color of dishwater. The rural roads are cloaked in fog. Everyone's breath is expressed in steam. It's the kind of weather in which you don't want to run around nude.
So why is it dull? The smallpox epidemic comes and goes but is used mainly as a peg on which to hang a routine soap opera. Johnson has had an affair with Donlan. Should he tell his wife, Bloom? Does Bloom already know? Donlan's husband is a fellow doctor. Does he know? If he doesn't know, should Johnson tell him? Did Donlan tell Bloom? Did Bloom believe Donlan? Did Blomlan believe that Doom believed Broom and/or Drumlin? Was the Kremlin in on it somehow?
People get sick in the background and then they get well or they die, while these marital problems of monumental proportions are puzzled over. That damned smallpox epidemic keeps getting in the way of the broody soap opera.
There are a couple of dramatic or comic moments -- a fat man faints during his vaccination -- that bring momentary sparks to a flat script, but this thing needs not a vaccination but CPR. Wait -- we've got a bleeder here. We're losing him. Yes, it's too late. Let's call it.
The rest of the supporting cast has an abundance of familiar faces who give reliable performances. There are even a few minutes of Arthur Christianson as the frazzled editor, who was the editor in "The Day The Earth Caught Fire," and who is, in fact, not an actor at all but a real-life newspaper editor. Cyril Cusack gives a sterling performance as the empathic, perceptive, phlegmatic Father McGuire. Only Judy Donlan can't seem to conquer her lines, but what do you expect from Jersey City? The location shooting is evocative too. It's Bath at Christmas time. The snow is heaped in piles within shady corners. The skies are the color of dishwater. The rural roads are cloaked in fog. Everyone's breath is expressed in steam. It's the kind of weather in which you don't want to run around nude.
So why is it dull? The smallpox epidemic comes and goes but is used mainly as a peg on which to hang a routine soap opera. Johnson has had an affair with Donlan. Should he tell his wife, Bloom? Does Bloom already know? Donlan's husband is a fellow doctor. Does he know? If he doesn't know, should Johnson tell him? Did Donlan tell Bloom? Did Bloom believe Donlan? Did Blomlan believe that Doom believed Broom and/or Drumlin? Was the Kremlin in on it somehow?
People get sick in the background and then they get well or they die, while these marital problems of monumental proportions are puzzled over. That damned smallpox epidemic keeps getting in the way of the broody soap opera.
There are a couple of dramatic or comic moments -- a fat man faints during his vaccination -- that bring momentary sparks to a flat script, but this thing needs not a vaccination but CPR. Wait -- we've got a bleeder here. We're losing him. Yes, it's too late. Let's call it.