Screen/Society--"Pickup on South Street" (Samuel Fuller, 1953, 35mm)

Film screening:

"Pickup on South Street"
(Samuel Fuller, 1953, 80 min, USA, English, 35mm)

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 more spectacular haul than he could have imagined: a strip of microfilm bearing confidential U.S. information. 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 against Red, and passion against self-preservation. With its dazzling cast and writer-director Samuel Fuller's signature hard-boiled repartee and raw energy, 'Pickup on South Street' is a true film noir classic by one of America's most passionate cinematic craftspeople. Screened in 35mm!

"Deliriously hard-boiled noir." - J. Hoberman

"A work of reverberating complexity, wrapped up to look like a candy bar." - Lucy Sante

View trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qCA5rgnv3Q

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"Fuller's pugnacious direction and his gutter-up view of city life romanticize both the criminal code of honor and the jangling paranoia of global plots; his hard-edged long takes depict underworld cruelty with reportorial wonder." - Richard Bordy, New Yorker