Pescada en la calle

When the story begins, Mary (Sylvia Sidney) is getting out of prison. It seems her husband led her astray and she's determined not to make that mistake again and live the straight and narrow. During a rain storm, she meets Harry (George Raft) and things are looking up for her. But her ex- isn't about to let go of her...and while he's in prison, he's making plans for the two of them

In the meantime, Mary wants to see Harry make more of himself and thinks that he's just settling with his job. Harry is happy to just be a cab driver. Well, Mary is determined to help him be more...and manipulates him nicely to get him to work his way up in life. But without a marriage....how long can she hold on to him...especially when another woman seems very interested in him? And, what's next for this unusual couple?

This film is a good example of a Pre-Code film. For example, early in the film, Mary needs a place to stay and Harry lets her stay with him in his apartment...something you just wouldn't have seen after the tough Production Code was implemented in mid-1934. Additionally, later the two live as husband and wife, as she tells him she's married but isn't planning on getting a divorce...again, something they wouldn't have allowed in this film had it been made a year later. And, finally, there is a woman who is trying to take Harry away from Mary...and Murial isn't afraid to chase after Harry and is very aggressive..describing herself as 'wicked'! Again, something you probably wouldn't have seen during the Code era. In the Code era, women were NOT supposed to be so aggressive nor enjoy a little hanky-panky! This lady clearly enjoys having a good time and has no interest in marriage!

So is that any good? Yes. Sidney in particular is quite charming and does a nice job here. As for Raft, he's not the same sort of guy you'd see in later films....his character is less sure of himself and a bit dim compared to his other movies. As for the plot, well, it's a bit tough to believe where all this goes...but it IS very entertaining and never dull.

Gary Cooper was supposed to do Pick-up with Sylvia Sidney, but Paramount had lent him to MGM for a film and shooting ran over. So George Raft got the part and I think it worked out better. Not sure if Coop's Montana accent would have worked as well as Raft's most urban persona.

Sidney and husband William Harrigan both went to jail after a badger game con cost the mark his life. Sidney got 2 years and is being released Harrigan has 3 more years to serve.

Sidney got a lot of notoriety and has trouble finding work and that's when she meets Raft who's a cabdriver with ambition. It's the usual boy meets girl stuff with Sidney not confessing she has a husband in stir and Raft gets picked up by spoiled society girl Lillian Bond.

This one is Sylvia's picture though Raft gets his innings in. The climax is in a courtroom and it's a wild one.

Pick-up still holds up well.

Just released from prison (her husband, to whom she is bitter for getting her involved in a badger game that had resulted in a suicide, still behind bars), a woman with no place to go and caught in the rain takes refuge in the back of a taxi. The cabbie, at first ordering her out of his hack, then relents and lets her come back to his place for the night. Things will slowly develop between them in this Paramount programmer.

Sylvia Sidney and George Raft star, and their presences are the chief distinctions of this fairly ordinary Depression era romance about a pair of people living on the edge. There's more involved in the story than that, of course. Sidney keeps her true identity and prison time a secret, though she eventually acknowledges to Raft that she is married. Getting a divorce would only cause undue publicity though she doesn't open up about exactly what that publicity would be. Raft, who loves her by this time, doesn't press the issue.

Complications arise from Raft meeting a free spirited society girl (Lillian Bond) who wants to use him as her play thing, and, even more so, Sidney's jealous, possessive former husband (she does manage a divorce, after all), played by William Harrigan, who gets released from prison and starts looking for her.

The film has a cute scene in which Raft is eating a meal prepared for him by Sidney. He only wants ketchup on his "he-man" food, he informs her, but she sprinkles some mushroom sauce on his steak. He tries it. "Well?" she asks. "It's great," he says, "Give me the ketchup."

I wondered about a few aspects of the film, though. In the next to opening scene when Sidney is in the warden's office for her final instructions before release there is a hard boiled newspaper reporter there talking to her, as well. The reporter gets on the warden's phone and calls in a report on Sidney's release right from that spot, his loud voice even interrupting the warden's conversation with the about-to-be-released inmate. What kind of media courting prison warden is this, I thought?

Later in the film, after Raft starts his own garage business and he and Sidney are doing a little better, they hire a maid (Lousie Beavers in an unbilled role) for their still modest apartment. A maid? They don't appear to be doing that well. Raft appears to be doing much of the garage work himself (still wearing a fedora, by the way, don't ask me why). Beavers, a likable actress, doesn't have much to do in her typical role as a domestic. She would soon, at least, get a better role and billing at the studio in Imitation of Life, one of the box office hits of 1934.

This was the first of three films that co-starred Sidney and Raft (the others being You and Me and Mr. Ace). Pick-up is watchable but there are no surprises. A party scene at Lillian Bond's house seems like unnecessary padding. The film does, at least, benefit from a sensitive performance by Sidney. Raft is still developing as an actor but he has screen presence.

Sylvia Sidney had the unique ability to present herself as both vulnerable and tough as brass, and never more so than here. She is such a sympathetic character from the very first scene. Her Mary/Molly is no nonsense yet idealistic.

Happily paired with George Raft as Harry, she is touching and involving throughout. Harry is an underachieving cab driver who is "satisfied" with the his low-rent life. It is amusing to watch her shove him up the ladder of success even when he does not necessarily see what she's doing.

Because Mary is still married to a con she's afraid to divorce, she and Harry must live together, allowing others to assume they are married. The script does not blanch at this, nor at the heavy sexual aggressiveness of the rich gal who goes after Harry.

Raft, of course, is gorgeous as usual, but here plays rather less worldly and more gullible than is usual for him. Harry's been around the block a few times, but can always get suckered.

Well worth watching, and a nice warm-up for Raft and Sydney's later hookup "You and Me."

Sylvia Sidney was Paramount's low-class weeper star in this period, with a lower-class accent and a beautiful face that could suffer stoically or break out in helpless tears just when the plot demanded it. In this one, she has just gotten out of prison because she and her husband were involved in a badger game and one of their victims killed himself. Her husband is still in jail and she falls in with George Raft, whose hair is always perfect. They encounter various problems that keep getting worse and worse until they reach the point where you're ready to laugh -- except that Miss Sidney is so perfect in these roles, that you simply want to hug her. George Raft is adequate and for those of you who like such thing, Charles Middleton, best known as Emperor Ming of Mongo is on hand.