Film review: PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (1953, Sam Fuller)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 80 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Richard Widmark (KISS OF DEATH, THE ALAMO, NIGHT AND THE CITY, PANIC IN THE STREETS), Jean Peters (VIVA ZAPATA!, NIAGARA), Thelma Ritter (THE MISFITS, REAR WINDOW, ALL ABOUT EVE), and Richard Kiley (NIGHT GALLERY, PATCH ADAMS?!). Directed by pulp cinema legend Sam Fuller (SHOCK CORRIDOR, WHITE DOG, THE NAKED KISS, THE STEEL HELMET, VERBOTEN).

Tag-lines: " How the law took a chance on a B-girl... and won!"
Best one-liner(s): "You'll always be a two-bit cannon. And when they pick you up in the gutter dead, you're hand'll be in a drunk's pocket." AND "I have to go on making a living so I can die. But even a fancy funeral ain't worth waiting for if I've gotta do business with crumbs like you."

PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET is almost handled like a science experiment. Sam Fuller delights in putting large doses of humanity's lower depths and a splash of Red paranoia into that Petri dish that is Manhattan, then sloshing it around and watching the ensuing verbal barbs, squealing, slapping, unexpected romance, and outright mayhem. However, like another great scientist of cinema, Werner Herzog, Mr. Fuller was also a connoisseur and devotee of humankind's idiosyncrasies. The love he puts into his characters makes them real: Skip's East River shack and unconventional method of keeping his beers cold, the tiny gestures and costume elements, Lightning Louie's use of chopsticks- its the kind of swift attention to detail that perfectly illustrates Fuller's background as a newspaperman. Fuller also had a background as a military man, which can be seen in how he treats film as a battleground of clashing characters, emotions, dialogue, and action (a sentiment which he famously intoned in PIERROT LE FOU). And Fuller also had a background as a sonofabitch, which can clearly be seen in scenes like when Richard Widmark finds Jean Peters in his shack, punches her out, revives her by pouring cold beer on her head, and then makes out with her thirty seconds later.


Fuller was another in the pantheon (that included Hawks, Huston, Peckinpah, and others) who knew how to weave a fantastic fast-paced narrative, how to build an ensemble of well-developed characters, when to use violence and when not to, when to cave in on studio demands and when not to, and overall, plainly, how to DIRECT.

-Sean Gill