See the greatest anti-communist movie ever made: Sam Fuller’s Pickup on South Street (1953)

By Nicholas Stix

I saw this on Red Eddie Muller’s noir alley feature on TCM, two or three years ago.

The second-greatest anti-communist picture came out the same year: Robert E. Sherwood (The Best Years of Our Lives) and Elia Kazan’s (On the Waterfront) Man on a Tightrope, starring Fredric March.

Pickup stars Dick Widmark and Jean Peters, and features Thelma Ritter and Richard Kiley, with Wilis Bouchey in support.

It’s not a crime movie, except in the broadest sense; it’s an anti-communist movie. Richard Kiley is a red traitor, seeking to smuggle microfilm out of the country to the Russians. He recruits his ex-girlfriend (Jean Peters) to carry it for him in her purse, but pickpocket Widmark snatches it out of her shoulder bag on the subway, while she’s being tailed by G-man Bouchey.

Bouchey then enlists the New York City Police Department to hunt down the microfilm, and an NYCPD detective brings in the best paid informant he knows (Thelma Ritter), a street necktie seller who is the reigning expert on pickpockets. Based on the information Bouchey gives her (e.g., does he use a newspaper to hide what he’s doing, and if so, does he fold the paper, or hold it the long way?), Ritter knows exactly who the perp is, but she just gives him three names, including his. You see, the perp is her surrogate son.

This role got Ritter the last of her four consecutive Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress, but she lost to Donna Reed for From Here to Eternity. (Ritter was nominated two more times, for a total of six noms, but never won.)

(Reed won for two reasons: From Here to Eternity, which won a total of eight Oscars (but should have won even more!), had very long coattails; and Reed gave an extraordinary performance as an aristocratic prostitute in a very meaty role, really a co-lead with Deborah Kerr, in a movie in which most of the leads were cast against type: Montgomery Clift (instead of Aldo Ray, whom Columbia mogul Harry Cohen wanted) as a one-time boxer who had killed his best friend in the ring, Deborah Kerr (Harry Cohn wanted Joan Crawford, but she demanded to have her own cameraman) as the camp commander’s slutty wife, and Reed (director Fred Zinnemann wanted Julie Harris, but conceded on Reed, since he had fought Cohn, regarding other performers). With Alan Ladd starring as the title character in Shane, which ultimately proved to be even better than Eternity, 1953 was the year of casting against type.)

Ritter was nominated two more times, but never won.

I first saw Pickup on South Street (1953) two or three years ago, hosted by Red Eddie Muller, who claimed that Sam Fuller was the greatest American since 1900. (Who’d figure?) Who do you think was the greatest American since 1900? (I have a feeling I know whom David in TN would choose.)

Pickup on South Street (1953) | Richard Widmark, Jean Peters | Film Noir. Spy Thriller.

Full Moon Matinee





The WEJB/NSU Theater, 1896-1981:

The Haunted Castle: George Melies (1896);

Georges Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon (1902);

The Great Train Robbery (1903);

The Wizard of Oz (1910);

C.B. DeMille’s The Squaw Man (1914);

D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915);

D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Through the Ages (1916);

Harry Carey and John “Jack” Ford’s Straight Shooting (1917), the First Feature-Length, “Cheyenne Harry” Western;

Charlie Chaplin’s Shoulder Arms (1918);

The Outlaw and His Wife (1918), Starring and Directed by Victor Sjöström (Seastrom);

Starring “Jack”: See the 1920 Silent Picture Classic of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde;

Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920);

Buster Keaton’s One Week (1920);

D. W. Griffith’s Way Down East (1920);

F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1921);

The Kid (1921), Charlie Chaplin’s First Feature as Director;

Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou’s First Pictures Featuring the Evil Genius, Dr. Mabuse: Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, Teil I (Dr. Mabuse, the Player, Part I); and

Dr. Mabuse, Teil II: Inferno (Dr. Mabuse, Inferno, Part II, both 1922, released one month apart) with English subtitles;

James Cruze’s The Covered Wagon (1923);

John Ford’s The Iron Horse (1924);

Charlie, in The Gold Rush (1925);

Lon Chaney, in The Phantom of the Opera (1925);

King Vidor, Laurence Stallings, and Harry Behn’s The Big Parade (1925), Starring Gilbert and Adore!

Buster Keaton’s The General (1926);

John Ford’s 1926 Western, 3 Bad Men;

Barrymore and Astor in Don Juan (1926);

When a Man Loves (1927), Starring “Jack” and Dolores Costello;

Josef von Sternberg and Ben Hecht’s Underworld (1927), the First American Gangster Picture;

Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger (1927);

“Wild Bill” Wellman’s Restored, Classic Silent Picture, Wings (1927), One of the First Two Best Picture Oscar Winners;

F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927, One of the First Two Best Picture Oscar Winners);

Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou’s Dystopian Science Fiction Epic, Metropolis (1927), the Greatest S/F Picture Ever, Plus Its Soundtrack Suite;

Frank Borzage and Austin Strong’s Seventh Heaven (1927);

Garbo and Gilbert in Love (1927);

Samson Raphaelson, Alfred A. Cohn, Jack Jarmuth and Alan Crosland’s The Jazz Singer (1927), the First-Ever Talkie, Starring Al Jolson, by Warner Brothers;

King Vidor’s The Crowd 1928;

Carl Theodor Dreyer's silent, The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928);

Bessie Smith in St. Louis Blues (talkie, short, 1929);

See Louise Brooks in G.W. Pabst’s world-famous silent, Pandora’s Box (1929);

See Louise Brooks in Pabst's Das Tagebuch einer Verlorenen (Diary of a Lost Girl, 1929);

See John Wayne, in His First Starring Role in an “A” Picture, Raoul Walsh’s Western Epic Talky, The Big Trail (1930)”;

Fritz Lang & Thea von Harbou’s First Talkie: M: Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder (1931) (M: A City Searches for a Murderer);

Paul Robeson in Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones (talkie, 1933);

"John Wayne Movie: See over 3 Hours of Foreign Legion Action! Classic Early 1930s Serial, The Three Musketeers;

The Man Who Knew too Much (1934): The Original Version of the Early Hitchcock Classic;

John Ford’s Judge Priest (1934), Starring Will Rogers, with Hattie McDaniel;

The Fighting Westerner (1935);

Kate Hepburn in the Super Chief’s Quality Street (1937);

Cary Grant and Roz Russell in Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur, and Howard Hawks’ His Girl Friday (1940);

Zero’s Since You Went Away (1944);

Orson Welles’ The Stranger (1946);

The Lethal Lure (1946);

William Dieterle’s A Portrait of Jennie (1948);

Jules Dassin, Albert Malz, and Malvin Wald’s The Naked City (1948), Plus Music;

Pierre Chenal and Richard Wright's Native Son (1951);

Budd Schulberg and Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954);

R.G. Springsteen and Montgomery Pittman’s Come Next Spring (1956);

Robert Wise and Abraham Polonsky’s Odds against Tomorrow (1959);

Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966);

See Geraldine Page in Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory (1966, TV movie);

Lee Marvin as Sergeant Ryker (1963/1968); and

Paul Newman, in Fort Apache, the Bronx (1981) (exclusive review); The movie.