Pickup
Jan Horak is a middle-aged railroad dispatcher stationed at a forsaken spot in the desert, within driving distance of the nearest town. A widower, he has saved his money and goes to town to buy a dog, meets Betty, a flashy blonde who gains his confidence and marries him to acquire his $7,000 "fortune."
From the archive
Pickup is a 1951 American low-budget film noir starring Hugo Haas, Beverly Michaels, Allan Nixon and Howland Chamberlain. Written and directed by Haas, a Czech actor and filmmaker, it was his first American film behind the camera. Haas, a refugee from German-occupied Europe, went on to make a series of gloomy noirs about doomed middle-aged men led astray by younger femmes fatales. The film is based on a 1926 novel, Guard No. 47 by Josef Kopta, and has a plot similar to the 1946 film The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), though with a much different ending.
Why this is free to watch
Pickup (1951) is hosted by the Internet Archive as a public-domain or openly licensed work, which means its copyright has expired, lapsed, or was released by the rights holder. No signup, no payment and no advertising interrupts playback. Nitrate streams the file directly from the Archive and hosts no video itself.
- Director
- Hugo Haas
- Starring
- Hugo Haas, Beverly Michaels, Allan Nixon, Howland Chamberlain, Jo-Carroll Dennison, Bernard Gorcey, Mark Lowell, Jack Daley
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