Pickup On South Street

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

I didn't realize this at the time, but it turns out that the lead actor from this movie, Richard Widmark, just died last week. Odd coincidence, considering I don't think I've even seen him in a movie before.

This is a 50's noir with a little spy movie thrown in for kicks, and Widmark is really quite good as Skip, a character who is may be more of a cold-hearted bastard than his name would suggest. The director is Sam Fuller, this is the 3rd film I've seen by him and I should see more because they've all been pretty good. His The Big Red One is a semi-autobiographical war film, probably the oddest WWII movie I've ever seen, it stars Lee Marvin and Luke Skywalker and the main nerd from Revenge of the Nerds, and contains a scene where a woman gives birth inside a tank. The Naked Kiss is a 60's melodrama with a tinge of noir and the main character murders her fiancee when she discovers that he's a pedophile. So, he makes pretty kick ass movies.

Pickup On South Street is a short, exciting little movie with a lot of good characters, dark humor and a real cold blooded attitude. It also has some rather blunt sexism (possibly misogyny?), including a part where the hero accidentally punches out the heroine in the dark. At the risk of sounding un-PC, this attitude is kinda shocking in a very entertaining way. And I'll give Fuller credit, I think the sexism is coming from his characters, not from his own worldview. After all, The Naked Kiss is a movie about a former prostitute trying to start a new life, and the message is clearly that she's a good person who deserves a second chance. And in this one, all the male characters are right bastards, and the only likable character is an older woman who sells information on local crooks to interested parties. She gets murdered in cold blood, but it's because she's trying to protect the main character, and it's just about the only stand up thing anyone does in the whole movie.

I had a few complaints here and there, but overall this is a really good one, and only 80 minutes long, so it's absolutely worth your time.