Panic in the Streets News

Film history still thinks of Elia Kazan mostly as an actor's director. Not without good reason, of course, since the Greek-American director's movies gave us so many iconic performances, including Marlon Brando 's legendary turns in A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront , as well as James Dean 's starring debut in East of Eden .

The Spuyten Duyvil Library, located at 650 W. 235th St., will show Panic in the Streets, at 1 p.m. Elia Kazan's 1950 film is set in New Orleans and is about a vicious hoodlum Blackie , who along with his friends, kill an illegal immigrant they believe won too much in a card game.

Still Bill The story of how a 33-year-old Navy vet from Slab Fork, West Virginia, went from building toilets for 747s in a factory to playing Carnegie Hall in less than two years could fill an entire documentary.

Elia Kazan is one of the most revered - and controversial - figures in Hollywood history.

Today marks the centennial of director Elia Kazan's birth, and doubtless Hollywood will soon be giving us souped-up special editions of his finest film work, if they haven't already.

Elia Kazan was born into a Greek Orthodox family on Sept. 7, 1909, in an ancient capital of the world, Constantinople, destined to be renamed Istanbul by the Turkish rulers.

What, exactly, is an Elia Kazan movie? That's not an easy question to answer. In certain critical ways the acclaimed director fails the auteur theory that has served to define cinematic ambition and achievement ever since the French cooked it up a half century ago.

If you haven't noticed there is a decidedly ghoulish side to my personality that comes out every so often.