Pickup on South Street

Skip McCoy is a three time loser pick pocket, unable to curb his instincts back on the street, he picks the purse of Candy on a subway train. What he doesn't realise is that Candy is carrying top secret microfilm, microfilm that is of high interest to many many organisations.

Director Samuel Fuller has crafted an exceptional drama set amongst the seedy underworld of New York City. Communist spies and shady government operatives all blend together to make Pickup On South Street a riveting viewing from first minute to the last. Based around a Dwight Taylor story called "Blaze Of Glory", Fuller infused this adaptation with a heavy set political agenda, something that many at the time felt was over done, but to only focus on the anti communist leanings is doing it a big disservice.

Digging a little deeper and you find characters as intriguing as any that Fuller has directed. The main protagonist for one is the hero of the piece, a crook and a shallow human being, his heroics are not born out of love for his country, they are born out of his sheer stubborn streak. It's quite an achievement that Fuller has crafted one of the best anti heroes of the 1950s, and I'm sure he was most grateful to the performance of Richard Widmark as McCoy. Widmark is all grin and icy cold heart, his interplay with the wonderful Jean Peters as Candy is excellent and is the film's heart. However, it is the Oscar nominated Thelma Ritter who takes the acting honours, her Moe is strong and as seedy as the surrounding characters, but there is a tired warmth to her that Ritter conveys majestically.

It's a "B" movie in texture but an "A" film in execution, Pickup On South Street is a real classy and entertaining film that is one of the best from its most intriguing director. 9/10

In this excellent Twentieth-Century Fox film-noir, the metropolis is a labyrinth of despair in which scavengers and predators survive by living off one another. Brooding cityscapes lower over puny humanity in bleak expressionist symbolism.

A prostitute has her purse snatched on the subway. It contains a microfilm, and a communist spy ring will go to any lengths to recover it. Two parallel investigations unfold as both spies and cops hunt down the precious information.

Anti-hero pickpocket Skip McCoy is played with scornful assurance by Richard Widmark. He knows the cops to be his moral equals and intellectual inferiors, so he taunts them: "Go on," he says to captain Dan Tiger (Murvyn Vye), "drum up a charge. Throw me in. You've done it before." In this pitiless world, the cops are just one more gang on the streets. Just as Candy the hooker bribes Lightning Louie to get a lead, so the police are busy paying stool pigeons for information.

It is hard to believe that when Widmark made this film he was already in early middle age. The 39-year-old star, coming to the end of his contract with Fox, plays the upstart Skip McCoy with the irreverent brashness of a teenager. Today it may not be acceptable for the romantic lead to punch his love interest into unconsciousness then revive her by sloshing beer in her face, but by the mores of the period it signified toughness - and Candy, after all, is a fallen woman.

Jean Peters is radiant as Candy. Here, right in the middle of her five-year burst of B-movie fame, she is beautiful and engaging as the whore with the golden heart. She is the story's victim, a martyr to her beauty as much as anything else. She means well, but is constantly being manipulated by cynical men - Joey, Skip and the cops.

The real star of this movie is New York. Haunting urban panoramas and snidering subway stations offer a claustrophobic evocation of the city as a living, malevolent force. Like maggots in a rotting cheese, human figures scurry through the city's byways. Elevators, subway turnstiles, sidewalks - even a dumb waiter act as conduits for the flow of corrupt humanity. People cling to any niche that affords safety: Moe has her grimy rented room, Skip his tenebrous shack on the Hudson River. As the characters move and interact, they are framed by bridge architecture, or lattices of girders, or are divided by hanging winch tackle. The personality of the city is constantly imposing itself. The angles and crossbeams of the wharf timbers are an echo of the gridiron street plan, and the card-index cabinets in the squadroom mimic the Manhattan skyline. When Joey's exit from the subway is barred, it is as if the steel sinews of the city are ensnaring him.

A surprising proportion of this film is shot in extreme close-up. Character drives the plot, as it should, and the close-ups are used to augment character. When Skip interrogates Candy, the close-up captures the sexual energy between them, belying the hostility of Skip's words. Jean Peters' beauty is painted in light, in exquisite soft focus close-ups. The device is also employed to heighten the tension. The opening sequence, the purse snatch, contains no dialogue: the drama relies entirely on close-up for its powerful effect.

Snoopers, and snoopers upon snoopers, populate the film. Moe (Thelma Ritter) makes a living as an informant, and her place in the hierarchy is accepted, even by her victims. When Skip observes, "she's gotta eat", he is chanting a recurring refrain. Just as 'straight' New Yorkers peddle lamb chops or lumber, the Underworld traffics in the commodity of information.

And yet even the stool pigeons are superior to Joey and his communist friends. Joey's feet on Moe's bed symbolise a transgression of the most basic moral code. Joey is beyond the pale. Moe will not trade with Joey, even to preserve her life: " ... even in our crummy business, you gotta draw the line somewhere."

"Pick-Up" was made in the depths of the Cold War. Richard Nixon had just been chosen as the Republican vice-presidential candidate, having made his name with his phoney Alger Hiss expose - bogus communist microfilm and all. The McCarthy show trials were a daily reality. We see the cops in the movie inveigh against "the traitors who gave Stalin the A-bomb".

New York can be seen as a giant receptacle in which human offal cheats, squeals and murders. Containers form a leitmotif throughout the film. Moe carries her trade mark box of ties, and candy's purse, container of the microfilm, is the engine of the plot. Skip keeps his only possessions in a submerged crate, symbolising his secretive street-wisdom. The paupers' coffins, moving down the Hudson on a barge, are containers of just one more cargo being shifted around the pitiless metropolis.

The film is a masterpiece of composition. Candy is shown above the skulking Skip on the rickety gangway of the shack, signifying her moral ascendancy. When the gun is placed on the table, the extreme perspective makes it look bigger than Candy - violence is beginning to dwarf compassion. The lovers are eclipsed by the shadow of a stevedore's hook, reminding us that their love is neither pure nor absolute, but contingent upon the whims of the sinister city. Enyard the communist is a shadow on a wall, or a disembodied puff of cigarette smoke. He is like the lone alley cat amongst the garbage - a predatory phantom of the night. Camera shots from under taxi hoods, inside newspaper kiosks and through the bars of hospital beds constantly reinforce in us the awareness that we are all trapped in the metropolis. We are civilisation's mulch.

Really liked the concept for 'Pickup on South Street', and have had a long-term fascination and love for film noir. Of which there are many classic ones too numerous to list right now, naming them too may be unfair too perhaps. The cast showed a lot of promise, Richard Widmark could do very little wrong in my eyes and was in a role that suited him to a tee and Thelma Ritter's knack for scene stealing was always a delight regardless of genre and story.

'Pickup on South Street' is not a masterpiece and there are many far better film noirs out there. That is in no way knocking the film, because 'Pickup on South Street' still manages to be very interesting and with the right amount of entertainment and grit. As well as being very well made and acted. If there was more subtlety and if one relationship was handled more realistically, it would have been an even better film than it was.

Do agree that the romance is far too rushed, with it having very little time to develop from feeling the complete opposite to begin with and then it happens just like that by not too realistic means.

The film has been criticised many times too for laying it on too thick with the quite unforgiving politics. That is very understandable and will agree with the criticism, as it is handled with very little subtlety with it being persistently referred to and some of it was not necessary (some might find it "dated" as well).

However, 'Pickup on South Street's' photography is rich in style and atmosphere, the eerie grit of the lighting too adding hugely to the suspense. Fuller's direction is well judged and gives the film plenty of momentum while with breathing space too. The music is slinky at times and haunting in others. The script is not perfect, but is mostly very smart and tautly written.

Similarly the story is always compelling, the gritty atmosphere beautifully handled and the suspense biting the nails when appropriate. Was surprised at how it pulled no punches and the uncompromising nature wasn't taken too far, the climax being the biggest example of this. The best thing about 'Pickup on South Street' is the acting, while Widmark is a menacing presence, Jean Peters charming and Murvyn Vye suitably caustic it is Ritter that makes the biggest impression. Her character is the most interesting and likeable and she is quite touching in it.

Overall, very good. 8/10

I watched this last night on TV (HBO). I have to admit, that the tension in this movie was unsurpassed by most other FN era movies. I loved the way Chip would be all calm one moment and then VIOLENT the very next moment. It was classic. Ahh yes. The dames, the villians, the cigars and thuggish cops! It has it all. This movie delivered all the goods to me. I especially loved the way they mixed communism into the plot, very common for this era of movie. Very daring also since blacklisting was popular in those days. I rate this movie one of the best I have seen in the FN genre!

This is yet another gritty and compelling film directed by Sam Fuller in the early 1950s. This minimalist and fast-working director has something unusual for his earlier films--a cast with some stars. Richard Widmark, Jean Peters and Richard Kiley star in this film about a group of Communist agents who are trying to sneak secrets out of America--and they'll stop at nothing to succeed.

The film starts with Peters on a subway car being watched by federal agents. They know she is a link in a long espionage chain. Unknown to everyone is the wild card in the equation--a small-time pickpocket (Widmark) is also on the train and he manages to steal the secrets that Peters is carrying. Widmark thinks it's just another purse he's ransacked--only later does he realize the seriousness of what he's stolen. Now it's Widmark on his own--with Commies and the FBI hot on his trail.

Widmark and the rest are exceptional and the film is gripping from start to finish. Although she didn't get top billing, a special mention should be made of Thelma Ritter. This supporting actress had perhaps the performance of her lifetime as a stool pigeon. Seldom was she given this much of a chance to act and I was impressed by her ability to play a broken down and sad old lady.

As far as the script and directing go, they are very good--but with one small exception. At first, I loved the way Widmark and Peters interacted. It's one of the few times on film you'll see a woman punched square in the mouth! Now THAT'S tough. Later, inexplicably, they become amazingly close--too close to be believable. Still, with so much great drama and such an effective Noir-like film, this can be overlooked. See this film.