Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 16-September-07
Spoiler Rating: Medium

Pickup on South Street (1953)

I admire the way "Pickup on South Street" is put together: the flow of scene to scene, the atmospheric New York locations, the feeling of peeking into lives and secrets which most people never know. Even the way the characters talk to each other is fascinating, although they are not nearly as likable as the production. The story follows cocky pickpocket Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark, slipping effortlessly into the role), who lifts a woman's wallet on the subway and unwittingly becomes the focal point of intrigue. The floozy he robbed (Jean Peters) was making a delivery for her ex-boyfriend (Richard Kiley), and unbeknownst to her, the strip of film in her wallet contained scientific secrets en route to the Communists (i.e., Satan at the time the movie was made). When said floozy, who is appropriately named Candy, reports that the film was stolen, her ex coerces her to tap her seedier connections and find out where it has gone. Meanwhile, the cops who were tailing Candy as part of a national security sting start hunting for the pickpocket as well.

As lively as Widmark makes him, Skip really is a cur, so some disgust inheres to watching Candy fall for him after he socks her in the jaw and treats her like scum. (Okay, he can't identify her clearly when he hits her, but his courting habits leave much to be desired.) Skip is an improvement over the old boyfriend, however, who eventually takes matters into his own hands and starts killing everybody who stands between him and his film. The lowlifes and tough guys (in whose class I include the cops) are offset by a poor snitch whose one goal is to make enough money to buy a decent burial plot before she croaks (Thelma Ritter). Hers is a troublesome presence that embodies my ambivalence towards the movie as a whole. While the wonderful Ritter does elicit sympathy, the character seems half-baked and manipulated to soften the story's tone. Portraying people who live objectionable lives yet possess a kernel of goodness might indicate depth, but it also might suggest that filmmaker Sam Fuller (or his studio) did not dare to take the narrative to its grim but logical depths. The story feels both too gritty and not gritty enough.

Logical or no, "Pickup on South Street" finds heroes, lovers, and bad guys among traitors, tramps, and two-bit thieves. If its characters veer between too coarse and too maudlin, at least its style brings them all into line.

Copyright © 2007 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.