Pick Up on South Street (1953)
Pick Up on South Street is a film by Samuel Fuller. This is the director’s fifth film and so far my favorite. Coming out in the early 50’s it has a unique period specific twist, in that communist turn out to be the enemy. With that, it is still genuine film noir set in New York City. Almost minimal because really there are only a handful of locations used, yet it still manages to feel like NYC…
The story is interesting as it makes you root for the petty thief. It all begins with a two time convicted thief, pickpocketing a woman on a trolley. Little does the thief know; the woman was being tailed by FBI agents and in the wallet he stole is secret microfilm containing US secrets that were to be given to the communists. Little by little the street smart thief figures out what he has and plays a cat and mouse game with the woman, NYPD, FBI, and the communists. This all leads to a semi-classic ending that will leave one rooting for the bad guy…
The relatively low budget of the film is hardly every felt. With a lot of poorly directed low budget films, you can feel the limitations. However, with this it is never really felt low budget. The actors are all well casted playing out perfectly genre specific archetypes. I feel minimalism is a more of a reactionary styling trait with relatively few settings being used. Yet they are all carefully chosen, rather a street, subway station, police office, dock, or tenement. It is all New York yet captured with a low budget with an amazing economic sense. This is really what film noir pictures where…in short minimal yet stylish for it.
This really is classic film noir. Though playing to the times it picks up the communist angle. This comes off pro-American because in France where communism had a place the story was altered to the communists being drug smugglers instead. Yet the film has a conscious with the tag line the thief says to the F.B.I., “Don’t come waving your flag at me.” So there is a complexity in this film, that is bottled nicely in an anti communist package served as Coke-cola.
