On a New York subway, a squirrelly pickpocket (Richard Widmark as Skip) lifts a wallet and, with it, a sought-after strip of microfilm the wallet's owner (Jean Peters as Candy) is unknowingly transporting from one Communist cell to another. Thus begins a Cold War spy thriller, doubling as a film noir, that pits petty thieves and cheap whores against agents provocateurs on the ramshackle New York waterfront. The story unfolds like a series of transactions in which “blatant self-interest” (among criminals and G-men) guides betrayal, criminal apprehension, and the flow of information. Capitalism becomes an antidote to “the collectivist enemy.” Yet some loyalties prevail. Hoberman writes: “Fuller's characters are adamant in their refusal to talk. Irrationally loyal to Skip, Candy and ultimately Moe (a professional squealer) are the equivalent of unfriendly witnesses who refused to reveal their political associations to HUAC….Thus Pickup on South Street pushes McCarthy-style anti-Communism through the looking glass to the far side of self-parody. America is protected by its outcasts.” “Commies, wadda I know about Commies?” says Moe (Thelma Ritter), the lowly stool pigeon. “I only know I don't like ‘em.”