Classic 50s Movie: “Pickup on South Street”
May is Classic 50s Movie month. Today’s guest post comes from Vincent Martini.
Movie Title: Pickup on South Street
Year: 1953
Writer: Samuel Fuller based off a story by Dwight Taylor
Starring: Richard Widmark, Jean Peters and Thelma Ritter (Oscar nominated performance)
Director: Samuel Fuller
IMDb Plot Summary: “A pickpocket unwittingly lifts a message destined for enemy agents and becomes a target for a Communist spy ring.”
Why I Think This Is A Classic 50’s Movie: The first of legendary filmmaker Samuel Fuller’s noir films and a personal favorite because it is a movie that made me fall in love with the genre. When I first viewed Pickup On South Street I was instantly in awe of the realness of the characters; Commanding officer with a chip on his shoulder, wise-ass outcast thief who doesn’t give a damn about the rest of the world, a confused damsel in over her head, a Chow Fun eating fink with a knack of picking up his payoff with chopsticks, a lovable stool pigeon trying to make ends meet the only way she knows how. Sure, these characters seem cliche when you think about how many times you’ve seen them and their rinse-and-repeat ways but for whatever reason Pickup on South Street makes them seem living and breathing while watching their story take place, a world I always thought and still think exists when watching the film. The performances are great across the board and Samuel Fuller used many inspirations from his own days as a crime reporter and shadowed NYPD Detective Dan Champion who he based Captain Tiger off of. Pickup on South Street is not only a classic Noir film it is also one of the decades greatest.
My Favorite Moment In The Film: The opening pickpocket scene on the train is a thing of beauty as Fuller learned from actual New York City pickpockets how they would go about boosting a wallet from a purse. Lovely insert shots the entire grift while the main characters almost flirt with each other with their eyes.There is no dialogue in the scene but that is something Fuller always did better than others in the noir genre by saying more with images than words. An excellent tone to set in the film and one that doesn’t let up until the very end.
My Favorite Dialogue In The Film:
It would be difficult to talk dialogue in Pickup on South Street without mentioning its most iconic line which put FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover into such a rage he shared a meal with Fuller expressing his distaste for his work and especially of Pickup on South Street. Widmark’s character Skip McCoy has been brought in for questioning and is shed some light on what he potentially has in his possession. The exchange certainly ruffled some feathers in 1953 and holds true to this day.
Skip McCoy: You boys are talking to the wrong corner. I’m just a guy keeping my hands in my own pockets.
FBI Agent Zara: If you refuse to cooperate you’ll be as guilty as the traitors who gave Stalin the A-bomb.
Skip McCoy: Are you waving the flag at ME?
All of Moe’s dialogue is brilliant in Pickup on South Street, a perfectly written and somehow better performed character by Thelma Ritter, her closing monologue is what earned her the Oscar nomination and rightfully so.
Moe Williams: When I come in here tonight, you seen an old clock runnin’ down. I’m tired. I’m through. Happens to everybody sometime. It’ll happen to you too, someday. With me it’s a little bit of everything. Backaches and headaches. I can’t sleep nights. It’s so hard to get up in the morning, and get dressed and walk the streets. Climb the stairs. I go right on doin’ it! Well, what am I gonna do, knock it? I have to go on makin’ a livin’… so I can die. But even a fancy funeral ain’t worth waitin’ fer if I gotta do bus’ness with crumbs like you.
Key Things You Should Look For When Watching The Film: Like the poster tagline states “NO PUNCHES PULLED! NOTHING HELD BACK!” In Pickup On South Street Samuel Fuller makes a film reflecting on the idiocy of 1950s Cold War America when every newspaper had Klaus Fuchs, the secret agent who operated from England selling microfilm secrets to the Russians on their headlines. Certainly there were people who believed fervently in the likes of Lenin and Marx but there were also low lifes like Joey who would wave any flag if it meant making a buck. What Fuller tries to achieve in the film is to show Cold-War paranoid America through the eyes of the defenseless, people who had no real political affiliation and were just trying to make what they needed to get through the day, week or month and whatever means necessary.
A new 4k Restoration of Pick Up On South Street screens in New York City at Film Forum from May 29th to June 4th, 2015. More information is available on their website.
Thanks, Vincent! To show our gratitude for your guest post, here’s a dash of creative juju for you. Whoosh!
We already have a set of classic 60s Movies, 70s movies, 80s Movies and 90s Movies. This month, we’re working on 50s movies.
Here is an updated list of 30 fine folks who have already volunteered [those who I put in bold have already sent me their posts]:
12 Angry Men — Ipsita Barik
A Place in the Sun — Zach Jansen
A Star is Born — Melinda Mahaffey
A Touch of Evil — David Joyner
All About Eve — Ricardo Bravo
American in Paris — stefani1601
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof — uncgym44
Commando Cody: Sky Marshall of the Universe — J Nilsson-Acosta
File on Thelma Jordon, The — David Joyner
Harvey — Felicity Flesher
High Noon — Jeff Messerman
Invasion of the Body Snatchers — Rick Dyke
Kiss Me Deadly — John Henderson
Marty — jetwillie69
Night of the Demon — David Hutchison
Night of the Hunter — Mark Twain
On the Waterfront — Bilbo Poynter
Pickpocket — Zach Jansen
Pick Up on South Street — Vincent Martini
Quiet Man, The — Traci Nell Peterson
Rear Window — Roy Gordon
Rebel Without a Cause — Jack McDonald
Searchers, The — mkm28
Seven Samurai, The — Paul Graunke
Singin’ in the Rain — Maegan Kelly
Some Like It Hot — Will King
Stalag 17 — James Schramm
Sunset Blvd. — Lisa Byrd
Tokyo Story — Jeff Messerman
Vertigo — Jason Pates
I’m looking for 31 guest posts, one for each day of May. Why not pitch in to help add to this online resource to inspire writers to learn about and — most importantly — watch great movies.
If you have a classic 50s movies on which you’d like to do a writeup, please either post in comments or email me.
Thanks in advance!
For the original post explaining the series, go here.
For all of the 50s movies featured in the series, go here.