This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantam.
In 1950, before he directed the film on the waterfront, Elia Kazan made another dramatic thriller, a movie called panic in the streets.
There's a reason you probably haven't heard of it.
It isn't a great movie.
Here with recorded is the story of a silent, savage menace, the events, incidents.
And emotions of the people who were.
A part of it, who found time running out as they looked into the.
Face of mortal peril.
The film tells the fictional story of a murder in New Orleans.
When the police investigate, they find the victim suffered from a deadly, infectious disease, a version of the plague.
Public health officials believe the killers may have contracted the disease as they carried the victim's body away.
What follows is a race to track down the criminals and halt an epidemic, a collision of law enforcement and public health.
If the killer is incubating pneumonic plague.
He can start spreading it within 48 hours.
48 hours?
Yes, we have 48 of.
Shortly after that, you'll have the makings of an epidemic.
In the first half of our show, we have a story about chaos and an effort to contain it.
It's a story about life imitating art.