Pickup on South Street
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Pickup on South Street is a 1953 film noir about a pickpocket who unwittingly lifts a message destined for enemy agents and becomes a target for a Communist spy ring.
- Directed and written by Samuel Fuller.
How the law took a chance on a B-girl... and won!
Skip McCoy[edit]
- [after first kiss with Candy] Sometimes you look for oil, you hit a gusher.
- I know you pinched me three times and got me convicted three times and made me a three time loser. And I know you took an oath to put me away for life. Well you're trying awful hard with all this patriotic eye-wash, but get this: I didn't grift that film and you can't prove I did! And if I said I did, you'd slap that fourth rap across my teeth no matter what promises you made!
- So you're a Red, who cares? Your money's as good as anybody else's.
- [to Capt. Tiger] You're sittin' on a hot rock. I'd like to see you jump!
Moe Williams[edit]
- Listen, Mister. When I come in here tonight, you seen an old clock runnin' down. I'm tired. I'm through. Happens to everybody sometime. It'll happen to you too, someday. With me it's a little bit of everything. Backaches and headaches. I can't sleep nights. It's so hard to get up in the morning, and get dressed and walk the streets. Climb the stairs. I go right on doin' it! Well, what am I gonna do, knock it? I have to go on makin' a livin'... so I can die. But even a fancy funeral ain't worth waitin' fer if I gotta do bus'ness with crumbs like you.
- Ask a silly question, you get a dopey look.
Other[edit]
- Capt. Dan Tiger: You'll always be a two-bit cannon. And when they pick you up in the gutter dead, you're hand'll be in a drunk's pocket.
Dialogue[edit]
- Moe Williams: You got any Happy Money?
- Candy: Happy Money?
- Moe Williams: Yeah, money that's gonna make me happy.
- Moe Williams: What's the matter with you? Playing footsie with the Commies!
- Skip McCoy: You waving the flag, too?
- Moe Williams: Listen, I knew you since you was a little kid. You was always a regular kind of crook. I never figured you for a louse.
- Skip McCoy: Stop, you're breaking my heart.
- Moe Williams: Even in our crummy line of business you gotta draw the line somewhere.
- Skip McCoy: You boys are talking to the wrong corner. I'm just a guy keeping my hands in my own pockets.
- FBI Agent Zara: If you refuse to cooperate you'll be as guilty as the traitors who gave Stalin the A-bomb.
- Skip McCoy: Are you waving the flag at me?
- Skip McCoy: Pack up the pitch with the charge or drive me back to my shack.
- Capt. Dan Tiger: I'll drive you back in a hearse if you don't get the kink out of your mouth!
- Candy: You've been recommended as the best pickpocket stoolie in the business.
- Moe Williams: What kind of talk is that, calling me a stoolie? I was brought up to report any injustice to the police authority. I call that being a solid citizen.
- Candy: But you get paid for it.
- Moe Williams: You gonna knock it?
- Moe Williams: I've got almost enough to buy both the stone and the plot.
- Capt. Dan Tiger: If you lost that kitty, it's Potter's Field.
- Moe Williams: This I do not think is a very funny joke, Captain Tiger!
- Capt. Dan Tiger: I just meant you ought to be careful how you carry your bankroll.
- Moe Williams: Look, Tiger, if I was to be buried in Potter's Field, it would just about kill me.
- Joey: You'd sell anybody for buttons.
- Moe Williams: Yeah, but not to you, Mister!
Cast[edit]
- Richard Widmark - Skip McCoy
- Jean Peters - Candy
- Thelma Ritter - Moe Williams
- Murvyn Vye - Captain Dan Tiger
- Richard Kiley - Joey
- Willis Bouchey - Zara
- Milburn Stone - Winoki
- Parley Baer - Headquarters Communist in Chair
- George E. Stone - Willie - Police Desk Clerk
- Stuart Randall - Detective
External links[edit]
- Pickup on South Street quotes at the Internet Movie Database
- Pickup on South Street at Allmovie