United States
1953
80 minutes
Black and White
1.33:1
English
224
Petty crook Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark) has his eyes fixed on the big score. When the cocky three-time convict picks the pocketbook of unsuspecting Candy (Jean Peters), he finds a haul bigger than he could have imagined: a strip of microfilm bearing confidential U.S. secrets. Tailed by manipulative Feds and the unwitting courier’s Communist puppeteers, Skip and Candy find themselves in a precarious gambit that pits greed against redemption, Right versus Red, and passion against self-preservation. With its dazzling cast and director Samuel Fuller’s signature raw energy and hardboiled repartee, Pickup on South Street is a true film noir classic by one of America’s most passionate cinematic craftsmen.
| Skip McCoy | Richard Widmark |
| Candy | Jean Peters |
| Moe | Thelma Ritter |
| Captain Dan Tiger | Murvyn Vye |
| Joey | Richard Kiley |
| Zara | Willis B. Bouchey |
| Winoki | Milburn Stone |
| MacGregor | Henry Slate |
| Lightning Louie | Victor Perry |
| Director | Samuel Fuller |
| Producer | Jules Schermer |
| Cinematography | Joseph MacDonald |
| Screenplay | Samuel Fuller |
| From a story by | Dwight Taylor |
| Director of photography | Joe MacDonald |
| Music | Leigh Harline |
| Musical direction | Lionel Newman |
| Art direction | Lyle Wheeler and George Patrick |
| Set decoration | Al Orenbach |
| Film editor | Nick De Maggio |
| Wardrobe direction | Charles Le Maire |
| Costumes designed by | Travilla |
| Orchestration | Edward Powell |
| Makeup artist | Ben Nye |
| Special photographic effects | Ray Kellogg |
| Sound | Winston H. Leverett |
“Why Sam Fuller?” a new essay by Tag Gallagher, in the latest issue of Senses of Cinema, asks. Aficionados might wonder, why even ask? But perhaps they forget that the two-fisted termite art of this . . .
It is a good time to belong to the cult of Fuller. Those of us who consider ourselves members never forget our moment of induction. Some enlisted when his films first hit the screen—lucky enough to catch The Steel Helmet in a shabby downtown theater, or Forty Guns at . . .
Samuel Fuller had ink in his veins, just like the hero of his 1952 newspaper epic, Park Row. After all, he started working as a copy boy when he was fourteen or so, and at seventeen he was the youngest crime reporter in the country, employed by the most daring and scurrilous tabloid . . .
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