Pickup on South Street
In New York City, an insolent pickpocket, Skip McCoy, inadvertently sets off a chain of events when he targets ex-prostitute Candy and steals her wallet. Unaware that she has been making deliveries of highly classified information to the communists, Candy, who has been trailed by FBI agents for months in hopes of nabbing the spy ringleader, is sent by her ex-boyfriend, Joey, to find Skip and retrieve the valuable microfilm he now holds.
From the archive
Pickup on South Street is a 1953 American spy film noir written and directed by Samuel Fuller, and starring Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, and Thelma Ritter. Widmark plays a pickpocket who unwittingly steals a covert microfilm sought by foreign agents. The film combines elements of the traditional crime film noir with Cold War-era espionage drama. It was released by 20th Century-Fox. The film was screened at the 14th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Bronze Lion. Thelma Ritter’s performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. In 2018, Pickup on South Street was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
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Pickup on South Street (1953) 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
- Samuel Fuller
- Starring
- Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter, Murvyn Vye, Richard Kiley, Willis Bouchey, Milburn Stone, Parley Baer
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