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Richard Widmark and Jean Peters feel the heat from the cops, the commies and their own passion in Pickup on South Street |
What makes Pickup on South Street so intriguing is
it’s not necessarily as straight forward as you might think. Fuller’s film is
an anti-communist film – the sort of “reds under the bed” scare that terrified
millions in a country still reeling from Klaus Fuchs and the Rosenbergs. But
this isn’t your standard Red Scare film. Because our heroes have about as much
stake in the USA as they do in the USSR. They are the down-trodden, the
under-class, the grifters. At the end of the day, I’m not sure Skip McCoy really
cares who ends up with the MacGuffin. He’s motivated firstly by financial gain
and secondly by personal revenge. No appeal to flag and country cuts any ice with
him.
Making the hero this sort of anti-social career criminal was
a master-touch as it not only enriches the entire perspective of the film – what
has their country ever done for these people – but also adds an air of uncertainty
over the whole thing. There would never be any doubt if the microfilm had
fallen into the hands of a clean-cut Henry Fonda type. The fact that it’s
Richard Widmark – who always looks like he’s torn between laughing in your face
or punching it – means you never quite know what he’s going to do. If it works
out best for him to hand that film over the Russkies, you can be sure he will.
That’s despite the heavy-handed entreaties of the cops and
feds. Skip faces a barrage of hostile interrogations, vague promises, handcuffs
and searches from law agents who are damn sure he has the film, but
can’t prove it. Like many Fuller films, there is more than a hint of roughness
and violence in every frame – and the law and order figures aren’t averse to this.
Captain Tiger (what a name!) has already served a suspension for beating Skip
in custody. An illegal search or two isn’t beyond them. You can see why the FBI
was unhappy with this film – not least because it shows them constantly
out-thought by a pickpocket.
The Commies though are a thoroughly bad lot. After all, it’s
still an anti-Communist film. Richard Kiley’s snivelling coward Joey is no true
believer, but the kind of low-breed opportunist tempted by a quick buck. The
other communists we meet are corrupt, shady types, sitting in backrooms puffing
pipes and casually handing out death sentences. Kiley’s weak-willed and
increasingly desperate Joey becomes more and more despicable as the film goes
on, desperation to save himself from the fury of his paymasters leading to ever
lower and despicable crimes.
So the only people who really come out as truly decent – and
playing by a very fixed moral code of their own – are the criminal underclass.
In this world, everyone knows where they stand. Skip isn’t angry at
stool-pigeon Moe, who carefully trades information with the police – everyone
has to make a living he observes. Skip will pick pockets to earn his keep, and
punch back when he’s attacked, but there is no sense that he has any taste for
the crimes of the Communist agents. He’ll sell on the microfilm to them – but
that’s only because his own government offer him nothing but hot air and empty
promises. And, as the unspoken message of the film goes, what difference would
it really make to Skip and his like anyway where the film ends up?
Instead Skip becomes motivated by personal feelings –
specifically his feelings for Candy and Moe. There is a genuine sexual frisson
between Skip and Candy from the start: Skip’s pickpocketing of Candy is shot like
a sex scene, all sweaty brows, heavy breathing and close-ups (with Skip’s hands
‘penetrating’ Candy’s handbag with all the metaphorical energy of a train
speeding into a tunnel). As events draw them closer together, the two maintain
this electric sexual energy – whether arguing or fighting or lying to each
other they seem unable to take their hands off each other – and the intimacy of
close-ups and low angles Fuller uses for this brings a real sexual charge to
their scenes. Widmark – superb as a heavy with a (hidden) heart – and Peters
are also great, with Peters bringing a real roughened hinterland of
disappointment to her role.
The other motivator for Skip becomes the stool-pigeon Moe,
brilliantly played with an eccentric bag-lady energy by an Oscar-nominated
Thelma Ritter. Moe is a grifter, selling ties by day and trading information on
the side. She embodies the underdog nature of the criminal world, wanting nothing
more than to earn enough to buy a decent funeral when she goes. Ritter has a
marvellous speech on just how tied she feels from this constant scramble
of scrapping by on the edge of society. A surrogate mother figure of a sort to
Skip, Ritter’s performance is a classic piece of character acting.
Fuller’s scene is lean, short and fast-paced. Like many of
his films there is a lot of violence – beatings, fights, shootings – all shot
superbly with the camera pulling back to soak up the action. Sex and violence
go hand in hand – Skip accidentally punches out Candy thinking she has broken
in to kill him, and the two of them are in a passionate embrace moments later.
Mixed in with touches of reality, that bring the tough urban world the
characters live in, Pickup on South Street is a lean and mean film that manages
to be more than just a straight anti-Communist film. It doesn’t just give us
something to fight against: it also asks how we might give people something to
fight for.
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