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| Richard
Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter, Murvyn Vye, Richard
Kiley |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark): Pack
up the pitch with the charge or drive me back to my shack.
Capt. Dan Tiger (Murvyn Tye): I'll drive you back in a hearse if you don't get
the
kink
out
of your mouth!
A cynical pickpocket steals a wallet
containing a microfilm with sensitive information being smuggled
by Communist spies.
 An
influential filmmaker not so much for the individual masterpieces
he created but for the independent spirit that graces his pictures,
Samuel Fuller was one of Hollywood's most colorful personalities.
Like so many uncompromising filmmakers before and since, his hard-hitting
style was rarely a good match for the Hollywood system, but for
a few years, he struck up a solid bond with Fox mogul Daryl F.
Zanuck, and Pickup on South Street was the first in a
series of A-list pictures that he directed for his studio. Although
Fuller's later B-pictures like Shock Corridor and The
Naked Kiss are now probably the director's best-known films, Pickup
on South Street is probably one of his best, matching his
aggressive, unsentimental style and themes to solid production
values and an outstanding cast. |
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Available only as a Region 1
release from The Criterion Collection.
The fullscreen
image is framed at its original aspect ratio of approx. 1.33:1. The
print presented here is surprisingly clean given the picture's
age. There are some instances of minor wear and tear, with
an occasional distracting scratch running along the side of
the frame, but overall, this is a great-looking presentation
with fine greyscale and pleasing detail.
The mono sound mix is presented in Dolby Digital 1.0. The
track is obviously limited in fidelity, but presents a clean,
uncluttered presentation of the film's effective sound mix.
This second film licensed
to Criterion by 20th Century Fox (after Naked Lunch)
once again shows how much the specialty label's producers
can add to what would otherwise surely have been a bare-bones
DVD release if handled by Fox itself. Thanks to the use of
vintage documentary and interview material, exclusive interviews
and judicious text annotations, this release is transformed
into a perfectly balanced introduction to the work and career
of Samuel Fuller.
Fuller himself discusses the film's production at length
in a meaty interview, edited together with
clips from the film and production stills by Richard Schickel.
Fuller is his usual ebullient, highly entertaining self throughout,
chewing on his cigar and reminiscing enjoyably about his
cararaderie with studio head Daryl Zanuck while spitting
out many of his aphorisms on filmmaking ('I WRITE... with
the CAMERA!...'). There's also a ten-minute episode from
a grubby-looking French TV show on filmmaking, in which Fuller
runs the opening reel of the film through a Moviola while
commenting on the music, the editing, the sets, etc.
Jeb Brody has written an outstanding illustrated
essay on Fuller's life and extraordinary career
as reporter, soldier and filmmaker, respectively, and it's
a pleasure to browse through even for those already familiar
with the many myths and tales about his life. Another text-only
item is a 1994 interview with Richard Widmark, who recalls
working with Fuller and a stunt he performed, but not much
else about this particular contract picture. Several image
galleries are richly packed with a wide variety
of materials, ranging from international release posters
to a selection of illustrations created for the publication
of the film's screenplay in 1988. Another terrific extra
is the trailers section, where we find theatrical
trailers for Pickup on South Street as well as those
for no fewer than seven other Fuller films. The DVD's booklet
presents excerpts from Fuller's autobiography along with
an essay on the film by Luc Sante. Highly recommended. The
main menu screen uses some clever animation and sound effects to
bring the retouched promotional photographs to life.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed:
May 18, 2004
Click
here for IMDB info on Pickup
on South Street.
Click here
to return to the front page.
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