Product: Pickup on South Street (The Criterion Collection) (1953)
Rating: 4.0
Film noir meets the Red Menace.
Samuel Fuller's "Pickup on South Street" is an outrageously entertaining mashup of film noir conventions and the Red Scare of the early 1950s. Once again Richard Widmark plays a charismatic cad--but this time a redeemable one; he's pickpocket Skip McCoy, who grabs a package out of Candy's (Jean Peters) purse on the subway. What Skip doesn't know--and neither does Candy--is that the package contains microfilm that bears a top-secret formula the Soviets want. Joey (Richard Kiley), Candy's sinister boyfriend, has been using the unwitting Candy as a courier to steal U.S. secrets and hand them over to the Reds.The story takes improbable but riveting twists and turns; Skip tries to pressure the Commies into a big payoff, while he and Candy, improbably but entertainingly, fall in love. Meanwhile, the evil Joey is out gunning for Skip and anyone else who gets in his way.Fuller keeps the tension up at near-hysterical levels, and at the same time creates a fascinating, Dickensian underworld in 1950s New York. Just because someone beats you up or rats you out in that world doesn't mean he or she doesn't love you. The brilliant performances help a great deal; best of all is Thelma Ritter, in what may be her all-time best performance as Moe, a sad, worn-out snitch whose only remaining ambition is to buy herself a grave. (As for Jean Peters, who could believe that only two years later she would play the serene, virtuous Catherine Marshall in "A Man Called Peter"?) "Pickup on South Street" is great, outrageous, compelling fun for anyone interested in film noir.