Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Monday, March 28, 2011

PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (1953)

Writer/helmer Samuel Fuller rarely balanced his taste for abrupt violence & tabloid sentiment to better effect than he did in this blistering film noir about a subway pickpocket who accidentally gloms onto a Commie plot. Richard Widmark is just about perfect as a cynical ‘cannon’ who finds money & microfilm in Jean Peters purse and then has to choose between gaming the authorities who are tailing this innocent; scamming the Reds who are running her; or giving in to the romantic possibilities of a conscience. The whole cast feels just right here (a rare occurrence for Fuller), but Thelma Ritter all but steals the pic as a police snitch who sells tacky ties & criminal characters as insurance against a permanent plot in ‘Potter’s Field.’ There’s a dandy (and remarkably tough) series of violent collisions in the last act, but Widmark’s turn as Orpheus on the East River provides the heartfelt climax to the pic. (And what a lovely two-shot Fuller uses for Ritter & Widmark at a lunch-counter rendezvous.) Fuller acolytes will always opt for one of his more extreme films, but first-timers (and nonbelievers) will find no better entry point.

No comments: