NFR Project: 'Pickup on South Street' (1953)

 

NFR Project: “Pickup on South Street”

Dir: Samuel Fuller

Scr: Samuel Fuller

Pho: Joseph MacDonald

Ed: Nick DeMaggio

Premiere: May 27, 1953

80 min.

Sam Fuller was a guerilla filmmaker. He was always on the outside, on the margins, creating what were at the time deemed “B” movies. He worked in genre films – war, noir, Westerns.

But there was something about his work. Compared to the efforts of most Hollywood directors, his were lean and mean, with a sensibility born on the streets. He chronicled the existence of outsiders, villains, freaks, and losers. It wasn’t until 30 years after his most fertile period that he began to be recognized as a director with a distinct vision, and lauded as a brave filmmaker.

Fuller began work at age 12, serving as a newspaper copyboy. He graduated to the role of crime reporter at 17. He then began to crank out pulp novels, and finally screenplays. In World War II, he served as an infantryman and saw combat in most of the non-Pacific battlegrounds – Africa, Sicily, France, and Czechoslovakia. He witnessed the liberation of a concentration camp.

He came home and resumed writing. Finally, in 1949 he got to direct one of his scripts, I Shot Jesse James, in exchange for getting no money for it. Thus began his rise in Hollywood.

Pickup on South Street is representative Fuller. In it, a professional crook gets involved in stymieing a Communist conspiracy to steal state secrets. It is not unusual that Fuller’s protagonists are streetwise, shady individuals. It is unusual that Fuller lets them triumph over the far better organized and legitimate forces arrayed against them.

Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark, in his accustomed antihero mode) is a pickpocket working the subways of New York. He pilfers from the purse of Candy (Jean Peters), the moll of Communist agent Joey (Richard Kiley). It turns out he has stolen some valuable microfilm containing formulae the Russians want.

Federal agents and the local police are tracking him, however. A police informer, Moe (the great Thelma Ritter), fingers Skip. (This is one of Ritter's six Oscar-nominated Supporting Actress performances -- she never did win!) They demand the film; Skip denies having it. Now Candy comes to him to try to get the film back. They begin to fall for each other, but Skip ultimately spurns her, demanding $25,000 for the film.

The Commies are after him too. Joey tracks down Moe, and tries to get Skip’s address out of her. She refuses, and is shot dead. Skip recovers her body from the boat taking it to a potters’ field, and gives her what she always wanted – a decent burial. Candy comes to Skip again, clonks him over the head, and takes the film to the cops. They in turn ask her to give the film to Joey, so they can trail him and capture the man to whom he is supposed to give the film. Candy hands over the film, but Joey finds it is incomplete (Skip held back one frame). Joey beats Candy and shoots her. Skip visits her in the hospital, and determines to get Joey and his fellow conspirators.

Skip tracks Joey into the subway where the handoff is supposed to take place. He busts up the transfer, knocks out the Communist kingpin, and pursues Joey onto the tracks, beating him unmercifully. The spy ring is broken up, and Skip and Candy go off together.

Being a self-taught filmmaker, Fuller ignores most of the “rules” of Hollywood filmmaking. He captures his players in sweaty close-ups. His camera moves along with the characters, drawing the audience in with kinetic action sequences.

Politically, Fuller voices a cynical philosophy through the persona of Skip. He doesn’t care about political ideology or patriotism – but he does care about the fellow inhabitants of his shadowy world, and is spurred to action when they are harmed. It’s the human connection Fuller cares about. Personal loyalty trumps ideology. Sure, the bad guys are defeated, but there is no sense of triumph over it, only relief that Skip and Candy can now get on with their lives together. At film’s end, we don’t even know if Skip will give up his criminal ways. In Fuller’s world, only the toughest survive.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: All My Babies. 

NFR Project: 'Invaders from Mars' (1953)

NFR Project: “Invaders from Mars”

Dir: William Cameron Menzies

Scr: Richard Blake

Pho: John F. Seitz

Ed: Arthur Roberts

Premiere: April 9, 1953

80 min.

This film represents the work of one of the original geniuses of American cinema, William Cameron Menzies.

Menzies invented the role of production designer on films. No one person had been assigned to creating the look of a film before he began to do it, in a career that stretched from 1917 to 1956. In that time, he won two Oscars – one a special award for his work on Gone With the Wind. He primarily occupied himself with production design, although he did direct occasionally as well, most notably the 1935 sci-fi epic Things to Come.

Invaders from Mars was an opportunity for Menzies to create a unifying mise-en-scene. First, he used SuperCinecolor for this film, which resulted in deep, vibrant, saturated color that gave the film a distinctive look. Then he designed all his sets with a spare, clean minimalism that gives the movie a dreamlike, hallucinatory feel. In Menzies’ film world, only significant elements are included in the frame and everything extraneous is taken out.

The story begins with a boy, David, seeing a flying saucer land near his home in the middle of the night. He tries to alert his parents, who disbelieve him. His father goes to investigate – and comes back from the site a different person, cold, suspicious, and hostile. David notices he has a peculiar puncture on the back of his neck. Two police officers and a neighbor girl are also affected. The puncture is the only sign of a mind-control device implanted in the heads of the aliens’ victims.

David goes to the police, but they only lock him up (the police chief has been taken over as well). A health department doctor interviews him, and he convinces her that his story is true. The two of them consult local astronomer Dr. Kelston, who theorizes that everything that has happened presages an invasion of the Earth from Mars. He contacts the Army, who surround the landing site.

What follows is a standard back-and-forth battle between the Army and the Martians, which culminates in the explosive destruction of the saucer. David then wakes up – it was all a dream! He reports it to his parents, who send him back to bed. He looks out of his window . . . and sees the saucer landing again . . .The End.

The movie plays well as an allegory of people’s fear of being conquered by an enemy force (remember, the Soviet Russians were our enemies at the time), and the film makes the viewer suitably paranoid. Additionally, there is the idea of one’s parents turning into cold, hostile creatures that do not have one’s best interests at heart. David loses his parents to the Martians, but he gains an idealized pair of parents in the form of the doctor and the astronomer, who are the only ones to believe him at first. This kind of wish fulfillment works well in the context of this fantasy.

Invaders from Mars would prove to be a template for the alien-invasion films to come.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Pickup on South Street.

NFR Project: 'This Is Cinerama' (1952)

 

NFR Project: “This is Cinerama”

Dir: Mike Todd, Michael Todd, Jr., Walter A. Thompson, Fred Rickey

Pho: Harry Squire

Ed: William Henry, Milton Shifman

Premiere: Sept. 30, 1952

115 min.

It’s a gimmick. It’s a gag.

I thoroughly agree with and endorse Kyle Westphal’s essay on this film at the National Film Registry. Read it! He captures the sheer daffiness of it.

After World War II, television made major inroads on America’s movie-going public. The big studios were worried. Hollywood was looking to provide something television could not. It started casting about for various new ways to attract viewers. First was an increase in “road show” screenings. These were prestigious showings of big-budget, epic, full-color films that featured reserved seats, an overture, and an intermission. Then there were first-generation 3-D films, for which viewers donned special red/green glasses – offerings such as Bwana Devil, House of Wax, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Then there was Cinerama. This was a special wide-screen mode of movie projection invented by Fred Waller, consisting of three projectors strapped together side by side, providing an exceptionally wide field of vision as it is projected on a wide, special curved screen. The result was supposed to engage the viewer’s peripheral vision and provide an overwhelming visual experience.

This Is Cinerama purported to sell this dynamic concept. The journalist and broadcaster Lowell Thomas was an investor in this new process, and he served as producer on this film as well as its on-screen narrator. This Is Cinerama is a sales pitch, really – a demonstration of the possibilities of the medium.

The film opens with a brief sequence summarizing the history of film, from prehistoric times to the present. This is shown in the 4:3 ratio, in black and white. Suddenly the screen expands, bursts into color, and we are in the front car of a roller coaster in New York. This leads to a series of sequences filmed at various places. We see the Temple Dance from Verdi’s Aida, shots of Niagara Falls from the air, a church choir, and the Vienna Boys’ Choir (Cinerama also pushed the advent of the new “stereophonic sound”).

The rest of the film is pretty much a glorified travelogue. We go to Venice, Edinburgh,  a bullfight in Spain, the performers at the now-defunct Cypress Gardens in Florida. We end with an aerial flyover of many national monuments, all while the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang hymns and patriotic songs.

The travelogue aspect of the full-length feature film is remindful of the travel films created during the early Silent Era. Back then, it was remarkable to see something you’d only read about; with Cinerama, you see familiar landmarks in a brand new way.

But was it worth it? What do you gain when you have wide-screen? What do you lose?

On the positive side, it is impressive. I was lucky enough to see the Cinerama project How the West Was Won (1962) on a Cinerama screen in Denver – at the late, lamented Cooper Theater. You feel like you are inside the movie – it’s uncanny and affecting, an overwhelming sensual experience.

But there were problems. First, to make three screens’ worth of images, you needed to yoke three cameras together when filming. Thus, the cameras couldn’t really move. They were usually bolted down to something, so that their three screens’ worth of images would later align accurately. Scenes were static.

Then there’s the problem of composition. Instead of a screen aspect ratio of 4:3, as most classic-period American films had, Cinerama had a ratio of 2.65:1! This elongated kind of view demanded an entirely different aesthetic, in the attempt to fill the screen, as well as to balance compositions.

Thirdly, you needed a special screen on which to view it. Thus the creation of the Cinerama theater, which needed the special Cinerama film to display. This required more projectionists and  special equipment. It was not cost-effective.

Despite initial enthusiasm for the new technology, Cinerama never took off. A number of epic films were made in Cinerama – It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), The Battle of the Bulge (1965), Ice Station Zebra (1968). But it wasn’t enough. Additionally, other film studios developed rival widescreen processes that did not require special theaters or retooling. These included VistaVision, CinemaScope, and Ultra Panavision. By the early 1970s, Cinerama was dead.

Today only three Cinerama theaters remain in the United States – in Seattle, Providence RI, and San Diego. Widescreen projection has now become the norm, and is even being supplanted for epic films by the immersive IMAX projection system.

Cinerama was a noble, failed experiment.

The NFR Project is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Invaders from Mars.