What was the allegory?

I think the ideology was completely confused as Elia Kazan was. There were these ideological messages:

Give kids a quarter to go to the movies.

Stay away from immigrants with plague.

If you are trying to find a killer with plague and not cause a panic: 1. cause a panic among the underworld by having the police arrest everybody for no reason. 2. cause a panic among dock workers by offering money for any information about a man and not explaining why 3. cause a brawl and mutiny on a ship. 4. cause a panic among journalists by arresting a reporter for asking questions. 5. Ignor the first four and just wait until some nurse phones in that she is treating somebody with plague symptoms.

If you're trying to get information from a dying man, caress him, then choke him, then offer to pay for an expensive sanitarium, and then toss him off down three floors onto the pavement.

These are the only allegories I could find.

"the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas" - K. Marx

If we are to believe that Elia Kazan's AMERICA, AMERICA is the real story of his immigration to the US, then consider he had a friend or a brother on board that fateful journey who apparently had TB. (I was around 9 when I saw it.) Anyway,
that "bro" committed suicide rather than be denied entrance or sent back. This "panic" then becomes justification for that death. Perhaps Kazan possessed "survivor's guilt."

What bothered me is that the wife has not been inoculated so she gives her husband affection at the end although he's still wearing "contaminated clothing" which we never did see him "de-contaminate" the first time he promised to.
I don't think folding the items up and putting them on a shelf qualifies.

"The rats and the disease were metaphors for crime and its effects".

It was particularly cool how, in the final chase sequence, Palance and Mostel were pretty much literally likened to disease-carrying rats trying to make their escape in the warehouse filled with loads of goods and in some filthy passageways underneath the dock, attempting to board the ship to potentially contaminate overseas countries as well. A very well directed sequence, too.



"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

Foreigners are impure and associate with the enemy within. Not surprising that "Grass" Kazan directed it.

Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.

East Europeans from abroad bringing with them the disease of communism!

Its that man again!!

I see there being a simple enough text- no need for sub-text. The hero is an educated authority figure, but we see degrees of imperfection in authority figures - like the somewhat resistant police chief and the ambivalent politicians. We also see the various layers of workers, from the cops, seamen and restauranteurs through the petty criminals... Everywhere there are shades of gray. No type or class is exalted or degraded. It is this (and the gritty location shooting) that makes the film worthwhile.

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