Tags
US 80m, B&W
Director: Samuel Fuller; Cast: Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter, Murvyn Vye, Richard Kiley
Pickup on South Street is film noir about secret negatives that are inadvertently stolen by Skip McCoy, a hard-boiled local thief who pickpockets the purse of an unsuspecting woman named Candy. Upon the discovery of the importance of the negatives, Skip attempts to extort a large sum of cash, which initiates a series of surprisingly violent events involving a group communists and federal and local law enforcement. As a classic anti-hero who is unconcerned about his country’s security, we eventually learn that Skip at least has a heart by way of the film’s fittingly romantic, albeit formulaic conclusion (Klaus Ming January 2012).
