A pickpocket inadvertently takes a piece of top secret microfilm of a Communist agent when he intends to pick a purse for money. From that very moment, his death is seemingly warranted, since he becomes the prime target of the Communist spy ring.
15 June 1910, Brooklyn, New York, USA
July 16, 1886 in San Francisco, California, USA
5 July 1904, Burrton, Kansas, USA
14 February 1902, Brooklyn, New York, USA
15 July 1913, Quincy, Massachusetts, USA
23 August 1903, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
February 11, 1915 in Huron, North Dakota, USA
March 6, 1889 in Pennsylvania, USA
20 August 1907, New York City, New York, USA
18 May 1903, Lódz, Poland, Russian Empire [now Lódz, Lódzkie, Poland]
27 June 1919, San Bernardino, California, USA
26 December 1914, Sunrise Township, Minnesota, USA
9 October 1887, Oslo, Norway
24 July 1909, Brazil, Indiana, USA
September 10, 1898 in San Francisco, California, USA
31 March 1922, Chicago, Illinois, USA
16 September 1894
December 19, 1919 in England, UK
15 October 1897, Peoria, Illinois, USA
23 July 1906, Boise, Idaho, USA
2 December 1913, Los Angeles, California, USA
5 November 1886, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
13 June 1921, Ridgewood, New Jersey, USA
5 August 1914, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
February 27, 1906 in Pony, Montana, USA
15 October 1926, Canton, Ohio, USA
24 May 1907, Vernon, Michigan, USA
27 May 1922, Los Angeles, California, USA
September 01, 2015
Like a spiky romantic comedy got stuck in one of the 1950s' bleakest visions of humanity - and it somehow all works magnificently.December 01, 2008
Pickup for the most part falls flat on its face and borders on presumably unintended, comedy.March 25, 2006
Sam Fuller, who wrote it and directed, appears to have been more concerned with firing a barrage of sensations than with telling a story to be believed.May 26, 2015
As good as are Widmark, with his proto-Method grin, and Peters, with her tawny, untutored naturalism, this is Thelma Ritter's movie. She transforms what could have been no more than a colorful eccentric to a figure of unshakable dignity.February 09, 2006
Perhaps finally flawed by its overt political assumptions, but the film remains a desperate kind of masterpiece.December 22, 2014
Cold War anxiety merely heightens the already-combustible fabric of everyday America in Samuel Fuller's two-fisted masterpieceMay 14, 2009
Almost perfect.May 25, 2015
Samuel Fuller's a master of unpretentious hot-house poetry, and that theoretical contradiction of terms gives one an idea of the irresolvable, elegantly compact flourishes that abound in his films.August 06, 2015
This atmospheric Cold War crime picture is a class act.March 27, 2009
Both Widmark and Peters are superb, but it is Ritter, as the seedy but much-loved Moe, who gives the film its emotional punch.May 25, 2015
Fuller's pugnacious direction and his gutter-up view of city life romanticize both the criminal code of honor and the jangling paranoia of global plots; his hard-edged long takes depict underworld cruelty with reportorial wonder ...October 02, 2002
It isn't his best, but this 1953 feature may be the archetypal Sam Fuller film, a condensation of his themes and techniques with the steam still rising.