Simply Perfect

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

At film's beginning we see a NY subway so crowded that the neurosis of claustrophobia oppresses us. Folks keep piling on, but no one disembarks. A pickpocket (we soon learn is Skip McCoy = Richard Widmark), a three-time loser, skillfully removes a woman's wallet from her purse. The pickpocket is seen by FBI agent Zara (Willis B. Bouchery), but McCoy nevertheless gets away. It seems that the woman, Candy (Jean Peters), was being tailed by Zara all along. Her wallet contains a valuable microfilm (describing a chemical formula) wanted by the Communists. Candy was passing it on to her sleazy boyfriend Joey (Richard Kiley), a Communist sympathizer. Candy does not know final destination of the microfilm. McCoy knows nothing about the microfilm; he just wants to make a quick buck.Zara consults with Captain Dan Tiger (Murvyn Vye), who in turn relies on Moe Williams (Thelma Ritter), a street peddler who sells ties. Moe is a police paid informer who has a price for keeping keeps tabs on underworld figures in the neighborhood. She lives in a shabby tenement, but is saving enough cash for a fancy funeral. She tells Capt. Tiger, "I've got almost enough to buy both the stone and the plot." With new information the lawmen go to McCoy's bare-bones waterfront shack without electricity (but note how he stores stuff) on the East River. One of cops is Detective Winoki, played by Milburn Stone, later to star as Doc Adams in the very long-running and successful TV series, "Gunsmoke." The cops demand the microfilm. As Skip balks, he is summarily taken down to the precinct. Tiger tells McCoy, "If you refuse to co-operate, you will be just as guilty as the traitors who gave Stalin the A-bomb!" McCoy boldly retorts, "Are you waving the flag at me?" Candy eventually helps the authorities, and even Moe hinders the bad Commies. Likewise, McCoy changes his tune, but for a reason different than that of the feds. There is a climax involving a terrific fist fight between two antagonists on the subway tracks. Richard Widmark as the cocky hood is good as always. The line of the movie is delivered by Thelma Ritter, in a marvelous performance as Moe. "If I was to be buried in Potter's Field, it'd just about kill me." Ritter lost out to Donna Reed ("From Here to Eternity") for the Oscar as Best Supporting Actress. Joe MacDonald shoots this one in tight close-up, especially the wallet snatch. Watch how Lightning Louie (Vic Perry) gobbles his noodles from the bowl close to his mouth and how he fetches Candy's $20 bills. The contiguous shot effect (often without extraneous dialog) brings out the tension sustained by each character: note the furrows, the sweat, and the quivering lips. See how well MacDonald captures the overcrowded subway, the shots of New York City, Moe's tenement, the bait shop along the waterfront. Cigar-smoking director Sam Fuller has at least three films elected to the American National Film Registry, "Shock Corridor," "The Big Red One" (the nickname for the 1st infantry division where he served in World War II) and "VE + 1." The latter is a short about the liberation of Falkenau concentration camp.

Due to its excessive brutality and sadistic beatings (especially the rough slapping around of pretty Candy), this rough'n'tough Crime/Thriller from 1953 ran into a lot of serious flak from the censors prior to its initial release.In order to appease the picky censor board's pointless grumblings, several violent scenes were quickly re-shot and even a "cutesy-pie", little happy ending was tacked onto the story for good measure.And because this film's theme dealt directly with Communist espionage on American turf, FBI agent, J. Edgar Hoover, even got into the act and complained to Darryl F. Zanuck (then head of 20th Century Fox) about the unpatriotic attitude of Richard Widmark's lippy character and his "Are you waving the flag at me?" line.Of course (as you can well-imagine), the whole controversy that all of this silly attention stirred up prior to "Pickup's" initial release did absolute wonders as a means of advertising and, thus, selling it to the curious movie-going public, and generating big box-office bucks.Pickup's story deals with the serious events that are set into motion after the brazen pickpocket, Skip McCoy, steals a wallet being carried by pretty, little Candy.Unknown to both Skip and Candy, this innocent-looking wallet actually contains a strip of microfilm of top-secret information that was being delivered to a group of ruthless Communist spies operating within the seedy underworld of NYC.Filmed in stark b&w, this hard-edged Crime/Drama had a running time of only 80 minutes. It was directed by Samuel Fuller whose other films from the 1950s included Forty Guns, Hell and High Water, and Underworld USA.

What is it about Thelma Ritter? She has enriched so many films and in almost every one becomes a sort of Greek Chorus; it's Bette Davis we watch in All About Eve, but it's Thelma that backgrounds the commentary--whether it's an acidic riposte to Eve's sad story of theatrical neglect or the plethora of furs on the bed--"looks like a dead animal act." Ritter was nominated many times for an Oscar, and should have won in this film for her worn-out informer who is "just doing her job" in this tightly-knit film noir.It's Jean Peters who is perhaps the titular star, surprisingly rich as a rather confused femme fatale who falls for Richard Widmark's hard-edged, nervous pickpocket, living on the water in a strange little coop where he keeps his treasures on a rope in the water. This is deservedly a noir classic, with all the hallmarks of the genre, and Sam Fuller's dynamic direction guiding his three main characters through a labyrinth of crime: each has a code that has very little to do with ethics of the FBI, but are oddly admirable in their sense of self.

This is not groundbreaking and it will not change you in any fundamental way. But it is deeply noir, and that is something always worth seeing.We have a story centered on a character who is, among every character, the one who knows less about what's going on. He is the only one totally outside the juicy plot he gets sucked into, and yet the only one that everybody (police and communists) believe to be in control of everything. Everything happens to him, he fights to control the events, but ends up being swept by them. Notice this: he literally gets into the story by randomly picking a girls' pocket, and steeling some very important film. He doesn't have a clue about the importance and value of what he has, and acts accordingly. In the meanwhile he tries to outplay both the police and the communists, using the girl as his arrow girl, as a shield. He ends up loosing control both of the story (but not quite), as he falls in love with the girl. So here we have a cute sense of chaos in the story, agitated narrative where we find ourselves lost, as much as our surrogate detective, in this case the pickpocket. Fuller has a great sense of pace and mood, and this film has a very special extra thing: the floating shack where many of the fundamental twists in the narrative happen. That is one great set that I will have with me for a long time. As an explored space it is good enough, in studio context. As a metaphor for the unstable mood of the whole narrative it works fine. In the end, this space becomes the odd center of the bizarre noir world of the film, and to root a film so strongly in a place is something I always appreciate.My opinion: 4/5http://www.7eyes.wordpress.com