Customer Reviews

Pickup on South Street

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Criterion Collection presents "PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET" (1953) (80 min/B&W) (Fully Restored/Dolby Digitally Remastered) -- Extravagant claims are made for this noirish spy film and for its director, Sam Fuller --- It has its moments of technical brilliance in lighting and camera placement and two superb performances (by Richard Widmark as Skip, a professional pickpocket just released from his third prison term, and Thelma Ritter as Moe, who sells information and ties) --- The plot centers on microfilm being followed by FBI agents en route to a Soviet agent when a pickpocket takes the billfold it is in out of the courier's purse on a subway.

Two of my favorite actors Widmark and Ritter, hit the bullseye in another great film about the life and times of people trying to make it in this crazy world of ours.

Need to pick this up on Criterion, for any film collector this is a must have in your ever growing collection on noir.

Under the production staff of:
Samuel Fuller [Director/Screenplay]
Dwight Taylor [Story]
Jules Schermer [Producer]
Leigh Harline [Original Film Score]
Joseph MacDonald [Cinematographer]
Nick DeMaggio [Film Editor]

BIOS:
1. Samuel Fuller [Director]
Date of Birth: 12 August 1912 - Worcester, Massachusetts
Date of Death: 30 October 1997, Hollywood, California

2. Richard Widmark
Date of Birth: 26 December 1914 - Sunrise Township, Minnesota
Date of Death: 24 March 2008 - Roxbury, Connecticut

3. Jean Peters
Date of Birth: 15 October 1926- Canton, Ohio
Date of Death: 13 October 2000, Carlsbad, California

4. Thelma Ritter
Date of Birth: 14 February 1905 - Brooklyn, New York
Date of Death: 5 February 1969 - New York

the cast includes:
Richard Widmark ... [Skip McCoy]
Jean Peters ... [Candy]
Thelma Ritter ... [Moe Williams]
Murvyn Vye ... [Captain Dan Tiger]
Richard Kiley ... [Joey]
Willis Bouchey ... [Zara]
Milburn Stone ... [Detective Winoki ]

SPECIAL FEATURES [BONUS]:
1. New high-definition digital transfer, with restored image and sound
2. Exclusive interview with the late Samuel Fuller, made by renowned film critic Richard Schickel
3. Excerpts from the Cinéma Cinémas series with Fuller discussing the making of the film
4. Illustrated biographical essay on Fuller by Jeb Brody (Scenario, Print magazines)
5. Stills gallery of photos, posters, lobby cards, and original paintings by noted artist Russell Christian (The New York Times, The New Yorker)
6. Trailers for Pickup on South Street and other Fuller features
7. Booklet including excerpts from Fuller's award-winning autobiography A Third Face, featuring Martin Scorsese's introduction and Fuller on Pickup on South Street, plus a new essay by acclaimed cultural historian Luc Sante (Low Life, Evidence)
8. English subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired
9. Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition

Mr. Jim's Ratings:
Quality of Picture & Sound: 4 1/2 Stars
Performance: 4 Stars
Story & Screenplay: 4 Stars
Overall: 4 1/2 Stars [Original Music, Cinematography & Film Editing]

Total Time: 80 min on DVD ~ Criterion ~ (02/17/2004)

Skip Mc Coy (Richard Widmark) is a person without colective importance; a rough pickpocket , a scroungy pretty gangster who sneeks a look into a woman's handbag, turns up some microfilm and finds himself dealing with communist agents.
This is a well made film, with a lot of issues. Moe (Thelma Ritter)overtakes this role as a street peddler who sells information.
A film which reveals as a few, the sordid and sinister underworld linked with the spy world which is blackmailed by a pedestrian thief.
Fuller's view is incisive, bitter and ironical. Nevetheless the film has unforgettable funny situations.
Thelma Ritter was a very talented actress and bowever, she never won an Academy Award ; but her shinning presence gives to the clever script that touch of class and outrageous fierce character; and of course don't forget adding the charismatical performance of Richard Widmark.
One of the most imaginative and powerful film noir made in any age.

Excellent old time detective thriller. You never have a doubt as to what's going to happen, but getting to go along for the ride, makes it worth all the while. Just the right bit of humour too...well worth adding to any collection.

Why does Amazon or Criterion show this 1953 old mainstream film noir movie as having an NC-17 rating, "Not for Sale to Anyone Under 18"???
This is a ridiculous error and needs to be corrected. First of all, there was no such film rating system in 1953 and second of all, this film would not be rated NC-17 if there had been such a rating system!!
This error should be corrected and soon!

How is this rated NC-17? Must be a mistake. This was made in the '50s!

The camera angles, the emotion, the violent outbursts of its characters and the suspense can be sensed in every frame of this film. Sam Fuller did create a masterpiece and it won him the Best Film Award at the Venice Film Festival in 1954 - deservedly!

The acting: Widmark is at his best. His Skip is a bomb threatening to explode any time. This is probably Jean Peters's best acting job in a movie. This actress has a lot of fire in her that she seems to keep under control, but - like Widmark - you can sense it can explode any time. Thelma Ritter (who was nominated for an Oscar for her performance) is tops as well and so is Richard Killey. These four actors in fact should have all been nominated for awards and certainly the film should have been - but that was Hollydwood in the 50's - the film was controversial, a film noir at that and Cinemascope and spectacles had entered the picture and sweeping all the awards then selected by fools enchanted with special effects, color and big screens.
This film is a jewel and it should be given more attention, more credit, and you should see it!!!

Reviewer displacedhuman has already provided a solid synopsis of our favorite Sam Fuller film, so I'll focus most of my comments on the quality of this DVD release.

I wish all such releases of older films were this well-planned and well-executed. "Pickup On South Street" originally came out more than 50 years ago. If its modern-day distributor, Criterion, was -- like some of the characters in "Pickup" -- just looking to make a quick buck, it could have made a cheap transfer to DVD and released the disc to movie lovers like you and me who, let's face it, would have been grateful to even have this classic film noir on disc at all. But the Criterion team has instead gifted us with a superb transfer. The sound and picture are excellent, from opening credits to the final fade. Do you know what that says to all of us who love this film? It says, "We respect your high standards and we respect the filmmaker's vision and creation."

But the good news doesn't stop there. There's some nifty bonus material on the disc itself; interviews with Sam Fuller, trailers for other Fuller films, stills galleries, and a text-only interview with Richard Widmark are among the special features. We also get a 20-page booklet that has excerpts from Fuller's autobiography (including filmmaker Martin Scorsese's introduction) and an essay by cultural historian Luc Sante. The whole booklet is a great read. And both the booklet and the disc's special features provide some wonderful anecdotal material that enhances one's enjoyment of the film and advances one's understanding of the sociopolitical atmosphere in which the film was made and initially released.

The people who created the film -- Fuller, the actors, the production crew -- will always have my thanks and admiration. So too, will the people involved in the film's restoration and release on DVD. "Pickup On South Street" deserves its stature as one of the greats of the film noir genre and this DVD shows why. Criterion has gotten it right the first time.

If you're unfamiliar with film noir and have no real interest in delving into it, if you think older movies are corny or boring, if you can't stand to watch films made in black and white, then don't bother with this DVD. It's not for you. It's for displacedhuman, for me, for Martin Scorsese, and for others who are passionate about films regardless of their genre or their vintage. We WANT to be transported to a different time, a different place. Yet I'm still struck, watching this film for the umpteenth time in my life, how Fuller so easily and quietly avoids stereotyping people or depicting our culture as "whites only." (Remember, this is the early 1950s we're talking about, and Hollywood's depiction of black Americans wasn't, for the most part, exactly enlightened.) But Fuller's world is populated by all kinds of people going about their daily lives. Dark-skinned and light-skinned, male and female, different ages and different styles of dress -- it's an everyday, workaday world that just happens to include some very unique individuals named Skip, Candy, Moe, Tiger and Joey moving among the crowd. (And I assume that the "1" on the shoulder patch of the soldier on the subway in the opening shot is an early film salute from Sam Fuller to his Army infantry unit in World War II.)

All in all, a great film and a superb transfer.

Samuel Fuller's "Pickup on South Street" is easily one of his better films and as cynical and tough as crime dramas got in the 50's. Richard Widmark is excellent as a cocky pickpocket who swipes the wallet of sexy Jean Peters that contains microfilm of government secrets to be delivered to a Communist agency. Peters is unaware of the Communist angle and is only doing a "job" for her slimy ex-boyfriend Richard Kiley (who's also excellent). Getting mixed up in the mess to get back the microfilm is street peddler/police informant Thelma Ritter who sells information to whoever wants to buy it. The film is gritty and unsentimental and none of the characters are saints. New York City is depicted as a tough place to survive especially on the dirty waterfront where Skip McCoy (Widmark) lives and stashes his loot and Moe Williams (Ritter) plies her trade. Candy (Peters) is a girl who's been around due to a shady past and never known a decent man in her life. She's trying to survive too. Peters (who's miles away from her ingenue in "Niagara" also the same year} is sexy and streetsmart with the bad-girl swagger that only Gloria Grahame knew how to pull off. Ritter earned an Oscar nomination for her role as Moe and she is simply fantastic as a doomed fringe-dweller who's getting tired. The film is a good hard look at crime and the school of hard knocks. The Communist plot line is only that---a plot line. The film takes no political stand. It's a story of people doing what they do to survive and the understanding between them that "everybody's gotta eat". "Pickup on South Street" is a fine noir crime film and another excellent DVD package from Criterion with lots of good extras. THIS is a collector's item.

In the booklet that accompanies this DVD, Martin Scorsese writes, "if you don't like the films of Sam Fuller, then you just don't like cinema. Or at least you don't understand it." It's a bold statement-one that sums up the attitude of Fuller's movies. He was a filmmaker who could never be accused of being wishy-washy on any topic. His films take forceful stances on a specific issue, be it Communism or war or personal honour. They are stripped-down, straightforward masterpieces that pull no punches. Pickup On South Street was Fuller's unflinching take on the Cold War. Even though he made the majority of his films within the studio system, very few have been released on DVD (or on video for that matter). The Criterion Collection previously released Shock Corridor and The Naked Kiss with excellent transfers but only theatrical trailers as supplemental material. They've rectified the situation with this new release that features a solid collection of extras providing a fantastic introduction into the cinema of Sam Fuller.

Aside from the movie there are some top notch extras included:

"Sam Fuller on Pickup On South Street" is an interview with the filmmaker by film critic Richard Schickel (taken from an longer piece he did for Turner Classic Movies). It's great just to hear Fuller tell anecdotes in his trademark hardboiled delivery-a passionate, gravelly voice.

"Cinema Cinemas: Fuller" is an interview with the man that originally aired on French television in 1982. The closest we get to an audio commentary on this DVD is footage of Fuller watching the opening reel of Pickup On South Street and gleefully talking over the footage.

"Headlines and Hollywood" is a well-written essay of Fuller's life and career that provides excellent insight into his background as a tabloid journalist that informed his movies.

"Recollections from Richard Widmark" is an interview with the film's star, taken from Lee Server's book, Sam Fuller: Film Is a Battleground.

Also included are trailers for nine of Fuller's films. They all look fantastic and make you instantly want to see each and every one of them.

Finally, there is a collection of stills from the movie, a poster Fuller filmography and illustrations by Russell Christian that accompanied the screenplay of the movie when it was published in Scenario magazine in 1998.

The Criterion Collection has come through again with a stunning transfer that beautifully restores this film noir classic. For people who haven't had the opportunity to see any of Fuller's work, this is a great introduction into his hardboiled, un-sentimentalized world.

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.