Product: Pickup on South Street (The Criterion Collection) (1953)
Rating: 4.0
Fuller leaves a noteworthy cinematic experience...
Samuel Fuller's background as a journalist shines through in Pickup on South Street as his story begins by bringing the audience directly to the point where a man pickpockets a woman's wallet out of her purse. Unknowingly the pickpocket, Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark), gets his hands on a microfilm containing government secrets as an undercover agent witness's the theft. Candy, the woman whose wallet was stolen, is swayed by her ex-boyfriend to try to retrieve the microfilm from the thief by using her connections in the underworld. At the same time the undercover agent attempts to find the pickpocket through the city's police force, and they use the local informant to discover the identity of the thief. Both Candy and the law use the same female informant, who supplies them with valuable information that leads them to Skip. Fuller's direction brings Skip's destiny onto the silver screen with suspense as his direction is forcefully straight forward without ambiguous intentions. It has been said, that what you see is what you get, and Fuller certainly knows how to put a scene together so the audience gets what he wants them to get. This leaves the audience with a noteworthy cinematic experience.