PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET: Blu-ray (2oth Century-Fox, 1953) Criterion
Samuel Fuller’s Pickup on South Street (1953)
straddles an interesting chasm in the noir movement. On the one hand, it
reports to be just another of those seedy little melodramas, shot on location,
that 2oth Century-Fox chieftain, Darryl F. Zanuck admired for their pseudo-realism
and ability to turn a tidy profit on a relatively miniscule budget. On the
other, it looks ahead to the ‘Cold War’ espionage thrillers that would
eventually come to dominate the 1960’s – its expertly authored plot by Fuller,
based on an original story from Dwight Taylor, dealing with accidentally stolen
microfilm of vital importance to the Eastern Bloc, desperate to possess it. It
was, in fact, Zanuck who showed Fuller ‘Blaze of Glory’, a tale spun by Taylor
about a female lawyer who, having fallen in love with a man accused of murder,
defends him by manufacturing irrefutable evidence of his supposed innocence. While Fuller was interested, his previous
experiences as a real-life crime reporter instead led him to an idea about a
lowly pickpocket and his gal/pal. Zanuck thought this premise ‘too European’. So,
together, they agreed upon what would eventually become Pickup on South
Street, gleaned from Fuller’s affinity for the seedy side of New York in
consultation with Det. Dan Campion to augment his fiction with a bit of verisimilitude.
Indeed, Fuller would pay homage to Campion, basing the character of Captain Dan
Tiger (Murvyn Vye) on Campion’s real-life suspension from the police force for ‘manhandling’
a suspect.
Pickup on South Street sports a strong
cast, front lined by Fox fav, Richard Widmark whose acting versatility proved
he could convincingly run the gamut between heroes and villains, often layering
his characterizations with a degree of shadowy detail that lent an air of
empathy to these otherwise wholly unsympathetic characters. And it is in
Widmark’s deceptively shallow anti-hero, Skip McCoy that our story derives much
of its strength and success. In hindsight, Widmark’s entire life was an
anathema to Hollywood’s hoi poloi. He wed for the first time to Jean Hazelwood,
a marriage begun in 1942, and, to last until her death in 1997. He then married
again, to Dorothy Hammerstein’s daughter. Like many of his generation, Widmark came to
the movies ‘third best’ after lucrative careers on the radio and Broadway. His movie
debut, as the giggle-happy sadist, Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death (1947) – a
role to earn Widmark an Oscar nomination - ought to have officially pegged him
as the ‘go to’ for psychotic villains. And indeed, Zanuck wasted no time
exploiting this angle in Widmark’s immediate follow-ups at the studio: The
Street With no Name, Road House, and, Yellow Sky (amazingly,
all made and released in 1948). Widmark’s turn as the vial racist in No Way
Out (1950), opposite newcomer, Sidney Poitier, reached the epitome of these
wicked and evil men of action, but also led to a life-long friendship between
the co-stars.
Yet, feathered in-between were other roles, nuggets to
suggest an actor far more impressive in the scope of his craft than just the
resident goon in this cycle of noir thrillers. Indeed, Widmark convincingly
played a hero in 1949’s Down to the Sea in Ships, and, Slattery's
Hurricane, 1950’s Panic in the Streets, 1951’s Halls of Montezuma
and 1952’s Don't Bother to Knock. Pickup on South Street was
Widmark’s first of two pictures for Fuller (the other being 1954’s Hell and
High Water) and, unlike a good many of his contemporaries, he would
continue to swing the pendulum of his talents between the congenial ‘good guy’
in pictures like 1959’s The Tunnel of Love, and conflicted, but valiant
adversaries in movies like 1961’s Judgment at Nuremberg. The magnitude
of his star power allowed Widmark to effortlessly fit into all-star spectacles
like John Wayne’s The Alamo (1960), and Sidney Lumet’s all-star Agatha
Christie thriller, Murder on the Orient Express (1974) before reverting ‘to
type’ as the superior evil-doer in Michael Crichton’s medical whodunit, Coma
(1978). In all, Widmark proved a powerful presence in 60 movies, his last in
1991. Some years later, the actor would reflect on the picture-making biz as
having lost much of its appeal in the interim, describing it as mostly a ‘mechanical’
in which performers where now made subservient to the movements of the camera. “A
great director like John Ford knew how to handle it,” Widmark surmised, “…he
didn’t move the camera. He moved the actors!”
If casting Widmark as ‘the heavy’ in Pickup on
South Street proved an almost foregone conclusion, finding an actress to
portray the tougher-than-nails and bitter tart, Candy was anything but easy.
Despite an enviable roster of Fox contract players, Fuller turned down such
favorites as Marilyn Monroe (according to Fuller - too sexy), Shelley Winters
(too intellectual), Ava Gardner (too glamorous) and Betty Grable (whose
insistence on performing at least one musical number left Fuller flat). Shown a
clip from the newly completed Captain from Castile (1947), Fuller was
disinterested in Jean Peters too…that is, until he bumped into her inside the
Fox commissary. Striking up a conversation, Fuller was immensely impressed by
the actress’ intelligence, spunkiness and warmth. And, in Peters, we have a
very rare ‘sport’ indeed. Raised Methodist, her earliest aspirations were to
study and become a teacher. Indeed, entering a beauty pageant in 1945 on a
dare, Peters was shocked when she won, not only the contest, but also the
opportunity for a screen test. This led to a 7-year contract at Fox, Peters
setting aside her aspirations for college – a decision she later regretted. Thus,
Fox allowed her to attend ‘night courses’, simultaneously to pursue her degree
while she worked for them during the day.
After several promised false starts, Zanuck cast Peters
opposite resident heartthrob, Tyrone Power in Captain from Castile, a
supporting role that ultimate led to her being typecast in period dramas and
westerns as the sultry spitfire. Turning down the female lead in Yellow Sky,
Peters was suspended, though not for long, rebounding with Deep Waters
(1948), and then, It Happens Every Spring (1949). And although Fox kept
her busy, by 1950, the public was still rather uncertain of Peters’ star power.
That changed with 1952’s Viva Zapata!, the movie to reinvigorate her
career and directly lead to her casting in Pickup on South Street. And
while this movie definitely continued Peters’ upswing, she staunchly refused being
typecast as the cheap girl, poured into tight-fitting garments expressly
conceived to market her ‘ass’ rather than her assets. “On Marilyn Monroe it
would look good,” Peters reasoned, “On me…silly!” Furthering the
point, Peters gave an extended interview in which she politely derided
Hollywood’s voracity for remaking simple girls into clothes-horse goddesses. While
that persona fit some, such sophistication plied to a ‘farm girl’ like her, instead
created a ‘foreign’ disconnect with the woman she actually was, void of any
innuendo, intrigue or otherwise deviant glamorization.
Peters take on Candy in Pickup on South Street,
at least in hindsight, seems a tad strained. For although she plays the more
heartfelt moments of burgeoning loyalty towards Widmark’s foundering fraud with
moist-teared effect, the scenes where she is required to be revealed as a
hard-bitten realist, with the bloom of youth distinctly rubbed off by her
previous and present involvement with ‘bad men’ since her teen years, comes off
with a faint whiff of denial, or at least, confusion for the sacrifices such
bad girls make, merely to get by and survive. 1953 was a fascinating year for
Peters, who followed ‘Pickup’ with a more suitable role as the
good girl in the Marilyn Monroe thriller, Niagara, costarring Joseph Cotten,
and then, again opposite Cotten in A Blueprint for Murder, the success
of all three pictures affording Peters a 2-year renewal on her Fox studio
contract. Alas, in one of Hollywood’s
sad ironies, the extension of Peters’ tenure at Fox did not equate to more
memorable roles on the horizon. Of the spate, only 1954’s Three Coins in the
Fountain became a smashing success – thanks mostly to all the gorgeous
travelogue Italian landscapes lensed in Fox’s patented Cinemascope. Peters did
appear in other noteworthy pictures from the decade, most notably, 1954’s Broken
Lance, and, 1955’s A Man Called Peter (1955), the final jewel in her
crown. Displeased with the parts she was being offered; Peters elected to go on
suspension again. Trading stardom for marriage, first to oil baron, Stuart
Cramer, then, to recluse Howard Hughes, Peters would not resurface until nearly
2-decades later, and then, only in a little seen TV movie, Winesburg, Ohio
(1973) and, 3-years later, in a supporting role on the TV miniseries, The
Moneychangers. As the 1980’s approached, Peters also surfaced in 1981’s Peter
and Paul, and had a guest role on Murder, She Wrote in 1988, her
last appearance.
Pickup on South Street was delayed in
pre-production by Hollywood’s self-governing code of censorship. This forbade
Fuller the scenes to illustrate Candy’s most vicious beating at the hands of
her Communist lover, Joey (Richard Kiley). It also removed a scene where Joey ‘frisks’
Candy for loot – considered too-too risqué by the standards of the day. Interestingly,
for the French release, all references to subversive operators were expunged
and the movie retitled ‘Drug Harbor’ to suggest a slant on
illegal trafficking instead, as France’s Communist Party was quite influential.
States-side, Zanuck and Fuller also endured flak from FBI director, J. Edgar
Hoover who emphasized his contempt for the picture and Fuller during a luncheon
with Zanuck, expecting to be backed in his opinions by the mogul. Only Zanuck stood
behind Fuller instead, but agreeing to leave the FBI out of any of the studio’s
marketing campaigns for the picture. Pickup on South Street debuts with
a ‘silent’ scene played out on the New York subway. Pickpocket, Skip McCoy is
observed by government agent, Zara (Willis Bouchey) skillfully lifting the
wallet of real looker, Candy. Unbeknownst to Skip, the wallet contains stolen
state secrets on microfilm, with Candy as the courier between boyfriend, Joey
and a communist operative whom we never meet. Curious about the loot in his possession,
Skip goes to the New York public library and accesses the microfilm on one of
their viewfinders. His curiosity is further whetted when Police Captain Dan
Tiger pegs him for a potential fourth arrest. Clearly, the information is of vital
interest to more than one party.
Realizing too late her purse has been lightened, Candy
telephones Joey who orders her to seek out the man who must have stolen it. Making
her way to Skip’s seedy waterfront shack, Candy is momentarily knocked unconscious
by him. Stirred after he spills cold beer on her face, Candy attempts a
seduction that turns rancid as Skip is no novice to such feminine wiles. And
although he mistreats her as just a tart, a queer and mutual appreciation
begins to form between the two. Meanwhile, Tiger employs local stoolie, Moe Williams
(Thelma Ritter) to narrow down their list of suspects. Now, Candy finds her way
to Moe’s apartment too. The women bond over their mutual affinity for Skip.
Cagily denying he is in possession of the microfilm, Skip baits Candy to see if
her feelings for him are genuine. Meanwhile, Joey hunts down Moe in her
apartment and, after being goaded, assassinates her in cold blood. Learning of
Moe’s demise, Skip and Candy plot a conspiracy to ensnare Joey. Only Candy has stolen the microfilm and now, with
Tiger’s complicity, heads for her rendezvous with Joey to make the trade. Alas,
Joey has had enough of Candy. He mercilessly beats her and, after she attempts
to escape with the microfilm, Joey shoots her in the back. Miraculously, she
survives this ordeal and after Joey is apprehended by Tiger, Skip and Candy are
reunited, vowing to be true to one another.
Pickup on South Street is a fairly
riveting melodrama. But it is not a true noir thriller and this, I suspect is
partly the reason it has not entirely retained its appeal in the interim since
its theatrical release. There is no ‘femme fatale’ here, folks, and, the communist
sympathizers at the crux of our story are rarely glimpsed, except for a
fleeting conspiratorial scene where Joey is ordered to retrieve the microfilm.
Richard Kiley is the wrong actor to embody this role. He lacks the appropriate
menace. Although his brutalization and attempted murder of Candy is effective,
the rest of his scenes either with Jean Peters or apart reveal a modicum of
weak-kneed fear lurking beneath the character’s bravado, and this, all but
diffuses Joey’s potency as a large and looming threat to democracy. Ironically,
the heavies here are Tiger and Zara – the law – particularly Murvyn Vye, who
plays his part as though he might be the dirtiest cop on the force instead of
the forthright purveyor of law and order he ultimately turns out to be. Apart
from the solid performances from Widmark and Peters, Pickup on South Street
is as blessed to have old-time pro, Thelma Ritter to carry the load in several
scenes otherwise wholly forgettable, except for her presence.
The Brooklyn-born Ritter, aspiring to become an
actress in her youth, before setting aside a career to raise a family in 1927,
shocked Hollywood by making something of a few throw-away lines in 1947’s
Christmas classic, Miracle on 34th Street, immediately to garner her the
attention of director, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who cast her, first in A Letter
to Three Wives (1949), and then, in the expanded role of Bette Davis’
private secretary, Birdie in All About Eve (1950), for which she was
Oscar-nominated. During the next 12-years, Ritter would become a beloved
character actor, appearing in such high-profile movies as With a Song in My
Heart (1952), Rear Window (1954), Pillow Talk (1959), The
Misfits (1961), and, Birdman of Alcatraz (1962). When Ritter
unexpectedly died of a heart attack in 1969, just before her 67th
birthday, the outpouring of genuine sympathy from fans and the Hollywood
community alike was unanimous. Ritter’s finest moment in Pickup on South
Street comes when her counterpart, Moe, returns to her seedy apartment
following several failed attempts to sell neckties to passersby on the streets.
Confronted by Joey in her declining state of physical health, Moe nevertheless
stands her ground, refusing to bow to his gun-toting threats. She explains that
to murder her now would be a blessing, not a threat, and, as the camera dollies
away from her careworn close-up, the sound of a single piercing gunshot
punctuates this bittersweet confession made by a declining, but still very much
defiant con-artist past her prime.
Pickup on South Street is a solidly
crafted movie of the ‘little gem’ class, with Fuller’s maverick disdain for authority
figures well ensconced in his depiction of the police as both duplicitous and dumb
to do any real, labor-intensive detective work on their own. Yet, Fuller’s
direction periodically sags. When he has a great actor in a scene these lapses
are forgivable, replaced by star charisma and/or screen presence. Rather
skillfully, there are very few sequences not featuring Widmark, Peters or
Ritter, either interacting or standing their ground in a solo where they
command the show. While virtually all of
these central protagonists sport a skewed sense of morality, Fuller’s ingenious
screenplay affords each a moment’s redemption apart from their externalized bitterness.
So, we really get under the skin of these characters. Skip and Candy’s
burgeoning affection is subtly nuanced and expertly parceled off with Widmark
and Peters having wonderful antagonistic chemistry in their early scenes,
eventually to melt into a soft-centered admiration by the final reel. Ritter’s
Moe – seemingly, the outsider here – is nevertheless the linchpin that brings
the entire story to its climax. And Ritter, as though imbued with a self-possessed
understanding of the ephemeral quality of life itself, keeps her alter-ego real.
Far from the put-upon frump whose only virtue is whatever street-gleaned intel
she can provide, Ritter’s Moe is the sort of street corner philosophizer and no-nonsense
pragmatist, understanding those around her much better than they think. Pickup
on South Street exploits the tried-and-true noir signifiers of ‘sex and
violence’. However, herein, these are interpolated with Fuller’s unique
undercurrent of post-war cynicism and a faint whiff of political espionage. The
movie brings together disparate figures and themes – not always successfully,
but rather, always in interesting ways, and, from Fuller’s rogue’s gallery,
culled from the seedy underbody of the city that never sleeps. These are destined
to collide with a frenzied crescendo and sorrowful desperation in the last
reel, leading to an uncanny redemption for the otherwise ugly little people who
populate his darkly purposed story.
Pickup on South Street arrives on
Blu-ray via Criterion’s association with the ‘now’ defunct Fox Home Video,
managed by Disney Inc. I have to admit, the results here are a tad
disappointing. By now, most reading this blog are aware of 2oth Century-Fox’s
executive shortsightedness that, in the mid-seventies, caused them to basically
ditch all original nitrate elements. So, no surviving OCN exist on this title,
even if what’s here is being advertised as a new 4K scan from a 35mm negative.
While some work has clearly been performed to eradicate age-related artifacts, what
is most disappointing is the much lower than anticipated contrast. This makes a
murky mess of the mid-register grey scale and renders scenes shot at night a
sea of darkness with a distinct loss of fine details. The image throughout is
soft, lacking in any accurate reproduction of grain. This has been homogenized
(a.k.a. smoothed) to the point of being non-existent. Close-ups occasionally reveal minute details
in skin and hair. But establishing shots are wanting at best, belying the hard
work poured into Joseph MacDonald’s B&W cinematography. Criterion’s LPCM mono soundtrack sounds fine. Leigh
Harline’s score is forgettable, but well represented nonetheless. A little
light on extra content, we get 19-minutes of Samuel Fuller, in an interview conducted
by critic, Richard Schickel in 1989, followed by almost 36-minutes spent with
critic/author, Imogen Sara Smith, who does an exceptional job contextualizing
the plot, characters and importance of the picture within the noir pantheon.
There is also Cinema Cinemas: Fuller, a terribly scant short by French
filmmakers, Andre S. Labarthe and Dominique Rabourdin, and the nearly hour-long
Hollywood Radio Theater adaptation, plus almost 40-minutes of trailers
for this and other Samuel Fuller-directed movies. Last, but certainly not
least, Criterion has assembled a kick-ass booklet of goodies – 28-pages of essays,
images and written commentary. Bottom line: Pickup on South Street is
gutsy with good solid performances to recommend it. It’s not the highlight of
Fuller’s career, but it is definitely worth a second glance in hi-def. The
Blu-ray, alas, is a bit of a disappointment.
FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the
best)
3
VIDEO/AUDIO
3
EXTRAS
3
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