SUBJECTS

Anti-communism -- Drama, Espionage, Communist -- United States -- Drama, Pickpockets -- Drama

Pickup on South Street

Samuel Fuller
United States, 1953

Archival 35mm Print

featuring

Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter,

In one of the greatest film noirs of all time, Fuller takes aim “at the idiocy of the Cold War climate of the fifties,” managing to irk Herbert Hoover and leftist French critics with “a movie about small time crooks . . . struggling to survive . . . abiding by their own unwritten code of ethics.” Candy (Jean Peters), pickpocket Skip (Richard Widmark), and Moe (Thelma Ritter) are honest criminals who get caught between the cops and a Communist plot. The sublime scenes of Skip plying his trade are recognizable inspiration for Robert Bresson in Pickpocket (1959). 

FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Samuel Fuller
Based On

  • a story by Dwight Taylor

Cinematographer
  • Joseph MacDonald
Print Info
  • B&W
  • 35mm
  • 80 mins
Source
  • George Eastman Museum
Permission
  • 20th Century Studios/Criterion Pictures
CINEFILES

CineFiles is an online database of BAMPFA's extensive collection of documentation covering world cinema, past and present.

View Pickup on South Street documents  

Samuel Fuller (program note), Institut Valencià de l'Audiovisual i de Cinematografia Ricardo Muñoz Suay, Quim Casas, 2010

Pulp fictions: the films of Samuel Fuller (program note), Cinematheque Ontario/a division of Toronto International Film Festival Group, James Quandt, 1998

Un Americain en Normandie: le jour j de Samuel Fuller (press kit), GMT Productions, Noël Simsolo, 1994

Pick up on South Street (program note), Cinémathèque Française, Luc Moullet, 1981

Pickup on South Street (program note), Edinburgh Film Festival, 1980

Pick-up on South Street (program note), Los Angeles International Film Exposition, 1971

The director's event -- excerpt (book excerpt), Atheneum Press, Eric Sherman, 1970

The American cinema (program note), Blake Lucas, 1970

Fuller (interview), 1970

Excerpt from an interview with Sam Fuller (before he shot The naked kiss) (program note), 1969

Displaying 10 of 14 publicly available documents.


View all Pickup on South Street documentation on CineFiles.