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By PAUL BRENNER
For patrons of The Criterion
Collection, it has always been comforting to know
that amid all the Bergman, Dreyer, and Fellini
fare, there has always been a place in their
catalog for Sam Fuller. "Shock Corridor" and "The
Naked Kiss" have kicked around Criterion since the
laser disc days, so Criterion's new addition to
the Fuller assortment, "Pickup On South Street,"
is a cause for celebration, a call to shoot a
loaded gun over your head and holler, "Action!"
Fuller applies his kino fist to this lean and mean
excursion into petty larceny mixed with Cold War
paranoia. Richard Widmark, just coming out of his
early sadistic giggling phase, is a skilled
pickpocket -- or "an artist" as he calls himself
-- who lifts the purse of the luscious Jean Peters
on a crowded New York subway. Along with his cash
boon, Widmark comes away with a strip of
microfilm, an item that Peters was unknowingly on
the way to sell to the Commies. The results are
the cops and the FBI down Widmark's back and
ex-boyfriend/rat Richard Kiley and a sinister
collection of fellow travelers down Peters' back
in an effort to recover the microfilm.
Like the ex-tabloid newspaper reporter that he
was, Fuller pares away the bushwa and whittles the
story down to its essence -- sex, violence, and
money. In a word -- emotion.
Fuller doesn't care much for his phony Commie
plotline and has artist Widmark spit the
"patriotic eyewash" back into the faces of the
authority figures -- "Are you waving the flag at
me?" Instead, he equates the selling of atomic
secrets to a business deal, as when Kiley explains
to Peters, "These manufacturers would do anything
to eliminate each other."
The cops and government agents in the film bemuse
Fuller. Instead, he falls in love with his social
outcasts. In Fuller, characters don't really have
an arc. They are what they are and Fuller immerses
the viewers into their singular world --
frequently with such gusto and vigor that the
experience is the cinematic equivalent of getting
pummeled. Widmark is so self-assured that he even
wears a nicely tailored suit in his bait and
tackle waterfront shack. Peters is dumb but
sincere. But Fuller invests most of his emotional
bank account in Thelma Ritter's Moe, a
tie-peddling snitch, who draws a line in the sand
by stating, "I may be a stoolie but I'm not an
informer." How can one not feel an emotional
attachment to a character who confides, "I'm so
tired, you'll be doing me a favor by blowing my
head off."
Other Fuller films are much more excessive and
warped ("Shock Corridor," "China Gate," "The Naked
Kiss" etc.), but "Pickup On South Street,"
filtered through A Picture values, still is raw,
un-tethered and nasty. Only a bit tidier.
The "Top Secret!" special features include a
Richard Schickel interview with Fuller, commenting
on "Pickup On South Street," Fuller examining
"Pickup on South Street" from a Moviola in a short
French documentary, an essay by Jeb Brody, a print
interview with Richard Widmark conducted by Lee
Server, trailers from Fuller films, a photo
gallery, a poster gallery, and illustrations of
"Pickup On South Street" by Russell Christian. |
