Pickup on South Street – Review

On a crowded subway train, pickpocket Skip McCoy (Widmark) swoops in close and swiftly nabs Candy’s (Peters) wallet out of her purse. On a good day this would net Skip some cash, and enough to leave other people alone. Today however, it contains more than he bargained for, especially as a man, Zara (Bouchey), watches the entire time from across the crowded train car. This all seems strange…

As Candy confusedly calls her boss Joey (Kiley), he tells her to come back right away. More men surveil her. The orders are: don’t lose her. Mr. Zara heads to the police, looking to inform on a pickpocket. Everyone seems very focused on this event, while Skip himself does not really know what’s up yet.

Candy sees this as a tough break. Joey knows he needs to find whomever stole from Candy, and took the “film.” What is this film?! Who needs it?! Who is willing to kill for it?! This is big business – cutthroat business! As the players spin around looking for this unknown pickpocket, who will find him, and who can stay alive?

The story is pretty good and the movie’s runtime is short, so the somewhat hammy dialogue should be mostly tolerable. I don’t know the cast that well but that did not hurt the film as the tale was enjoyable and covered plenty of interesting topics of the times during its brief jaunt. Overall this is well done and worth a look for classic noir fans.