Pickup on South Street (Samuel Fuller, 1953)

Thelma Ritter and Richard Widmark in Pickup on South Street

Cast: Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter, Murvyn Vye, Richard Kiley, Willis Bouchey, Milburn Stone. Screenplay: Samuel Fuller, based on a story by Dwight Taylor. Cinematography: Joseph MacDonald. Art direction: George Patrick, Lyle R. Wheeler. Film editing: Nick DeMaggio. Music: Leigh Harline.

What better thing can you say about Pickup on South Street than that J. Edgar Hoover hated it? Even though the bad guy in the film is a commie spy, he's really not much less a sleaze than the good guys: The film's protagonist is a pickpocket, after all, who sneers at patriotism and flag-waving. Samuel Fuller's peculiar mastery of the pulp genre was never more effective than in this film, which is distinguished by its performers: Richard Widmark as the pickpocket, teetering between vice and a grudging kind of virtue; Jean Peters as a bad girl with a good streak that only gets her beat up; and best of all, Thelma Ritter as the aging snitch who only wants enough money to have a good funeral. Ritter got an Oscar nomination out of the film, too. One of the darkest, and one of the best, film noirs.