2. Pickup on South Street (1953)
Dir. Samuel Fuller
It would be a crime if we finished a list of noir without at least one entry from Samuel Fuller, the newspaper copyboy turned director who turned Hollywood on its head with a series of brutal, no-holds-barred genre flicks that still resonate with a raw kineticism and energy to this day. One of his nastiest noir exercises was Pickup on South Street, a film remarkable both for its punchy power and its political audacity. The “hero” is a pickpocket named Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark) who accidentally snatches a microfilm containing top-secret government information from a Communist spy. But here’s the thing: even after discovering what he has, he’s not too keen to help the US government. When confronted with a federal agent who appeals to his patriotism, he sneers: “Are you waving the flag at me?” For a film made at the height of McCarthyism, this was one of the most audacious and shocking things imaginable. It was so heinous that it attracted the personal censure of none other than FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. But the film, much like Fuller himself, wasn’t particularly interested in black-and-white morality. He portrays a world of honor among thieves, corruption among officials, saints among informants, and heroes among the riff-raff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x03NXUVaBi8
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