Classic Films in Focus: PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (1953)

A favorite with film noir enthusiasts, Samuel Fuller’s Pickup on South Street (1953) features an odd combination of petty crime, espionage, and rough romance, with Richard Widmark and Jean Peters as two small-time losers who get caught up in a very big problem. The story and its characters are thoroughly noir but shaped by Fuller’s distinctive style. Morally ambivalent but surprisingly sensitive to its seedy protagonists, Pickup on South Street is also worth watching thanks to a knockout performance from Thelma Ritter, who earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Moe, a sympathetic snitch.

Jean Peters stars as tough girl Candy, who is unwittingly carrying microfilm for Communist spies when a pickpocket loots her purse on the subway. The thief turns out to be Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark), newly released from prison but already up to his old tricks. Jean’s ex-boyfriend, Joey (Richard Kiley), presses her to recover the film from Skip, which sends Candy to Moe (Thelma Ritter) for information. Meanwhile, the cops and government agents are tracking all of them in a desperate bid to keep the information from reaching its final destination.

Skip is a perfect character for Widmark, a noir veteran who excelled at playing shady crooks. Knowing the kind of guy Widmark tends to play, the savvy viewer waits to see if Skip has any decency in him or not. It could go either way. After all, by the time we see him as Skip Widmark had been Tommy Udo and Harry Fabian, but he had also played war heroes. Jean Peters also gives a terrific performance as Candy, a brazen, jaded girl who is still vulnerable enough to fall for Skip thanks to some electric charge that passes between them. The fierce look on Candy’s face tells us that she has seen the gutter before, and in Skip she recognizes a kindred spirit, even if he opens their romance by punching her out cold and robbing her multiple times. If their courtship has a brutal, even bestial quality, it has its tender side, too, as we see when Skip worries over Candy’s sore jaw and later reacts to the beating she takes from the enraged Joey.

Skip and Candy offer variations on familiar noir characters, but Thelma Ritter’s Moe is something else entirely. Noir does not generally play nice with its old women; most of them are shrill harpies or instant victims, not fully realized characters like the sad, pragmatic Moe. Peddling her ties and her information, Moe wants only to earn enough money to buy herself a proper burial spot, away from the ignominy of Potter’s Field. She has more heart than either of the younger protagonists, which they fail to appreciate until it’s too late, but her confrontation scene with Joey is as moving, tragic, and beautifully played as any scene in classic noir. Skip’s reaction to her fate becomes the measure by which we ultimately judge his character; it means much more than any lip service to abstract ideas like patriotism. Viewers might come to this film for Widmark, or Peters, or even Fuller, but they remember it for Thelma Ritter’s Moe.

Samuel Fuller also directed The Baron of Arizona (1950), Underworld U.S.A. (1961), and The Naked Kiss (1964). For more of Richard Widmark, see Panic in the Streets (1950), Warlock (1959), and Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). Jean Peters also stars in Niagara (1953), Three Coins in the Fountain (1954), and A Man Called Peter (1955). Thelma Ritter earned six career nominations for Best Supporting Actress but never won; see some of her other top performances in All About Eve (1950), Rear Window (1954), and Pillow Talk (1959).

Classic Films in Focus: NIAGARA (1953)

Although she is better remembered for comedy roles like Sugar Kane in Some Like It Hot (1959), Marilyn Monroe got her first big break in a noir picture, The Asphalt Jungle (1950). Niagara, a color noir thriller from director Henry Hathaway, was released in 1953, the same year as both Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire, but the Marilyn we meet in Niagara is quite a different gal from Lorelei Lee. Though not an essential example of the noir style, Niagara is an exciting film that pulses with sexual energy, and it puts Marilyn to good use in the role of a murderously unfaithful femme fatale.

Our story takes place in and around Niagara Falls, where a young married couple, Ray (Max Showalter) and Polly (Jean Peters), are finally enjoying a long postponed honeymoon, thanks to Ray's winning idea for the shredded wheat company where he works. At the cabins they meet another couple, Rose (Monroe) and George (Joseph Cotten), whose marriage appears far less happy. In fact, Polly soon discovers that Rose has another man in her life, while George appears to be coming unglued at the seams. When George turns up missing, everyone assumes it was suicide, but Polly, always in the wrong place at the wrong time, finds herself drawn into the deeper and far deadlier truth.

All of the major parts are well played, with Joseph Cotten edgy and worn as the understandably troubled George, and Max Showalter (credited as Casey Adams) blissfully and benignly stupid as Ray. The real action of the film belongs to Polly and Rose, however, with Peters and Monroe making perfect foils to one another. As Rose, Monroe comes across as cheap and scheming but certainly not dumb, even though she uses other people's assumptions about her to her own advantage. Both Rose and Polly are far more intelligent than any of the men around them, and the film's focus on its women makes Niagara an interesting noir choice for female viewers. Rose is very much a classic femme fatale, but Polly is more complex; Monroe might be the flashier figure, but Polly is the film's real protagonist, and Peters plays her beautifully. We only wonder why she is married to a dolt like Ray, who never listens to his wife and patronizes her with excruciating self-assurance as Polly tries to explain her suspicions about George and Rose.

The falls themselves function as another major character in Niagara. Hathaway and cinematographer Joseph MacDonald present the rushing water as the ultimate metaphor for unbridled passion, with almost all of the key scenes involving the falls or the river.  The characters spend a lot of the movie in bright rain slickers, climbing slippery catwalks, cruising on The Maid of the Mist, and wandering through the sights. It would be a great tourism advertisement if it weren't for all the homicide.

Technicolor noir is condemned as antithetical to the style by some purists, but Niagara successfully puts its palette to work in the service of its themes, and Marilyn certainly looks more interesting in color. If you enjoy Niagara, you can see more of Marilyn in film noir in The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and Clash By Night (1952). For more from Jean Peters, try Pickup on South Street (1953) and A Blueprint for Murder (1953). Look for Joseph Cotten in Citizen Kane (1941), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), and The Third Man (1949).

An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.