Pickup (film)

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Pickup
File:Pickup (film) poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Hugo Haas
Written by Josef Kopta (Novel Guard No. 47)
Hugo Haas
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Starring Hugo Haas
Beverly Michaels
Allan Nixon
Release dates
July 24, 1951 (US)
Running time
78 minutes

Pickup is a 1951 American film noir written and directed by Czech actor and filmmaker Hugo Haas. It was the first American film by Haas, a refugee from Nazi Europe, who went on to make a series of gloomy noirs about doomed middle-aged men led astray by younger femmes fatales.[1][2] Haas also starred in the film, alongside Beverly Michaels and Allan Nixon.

Plot

Low-budget, and showing it, Pickup contains a plot that is similar to that of The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), but according to Larry Langman "a poor man's version".[2]

Haas plays Jan "Hunky" Horak, a hard-of-hearing railroad dispatcher who lives in a poor neighborhood by the railroad tracks and is seduced by Betty (Michaels), who is after his money. After they marry, Betty and her lover Steve Kowalski (Nixon) scheme to murder him by running him over but Steve has a last-minute change of heart and swerves, lessening the impact. Jan's hearing improves following the accident, and he uncovers their infidelity.[3][4]

Critical response

On its release, Time praised Haas as "Hollywood's most promising new moviemaker" since Stanley Kramer, calling the film "a fascinating game of cat & mouse, played for pathos as well as suspense", and noted how its sense of character, acceptance of human frailty, and seedy, impoverished setting made it far from the usual Hollywood film.[5] More recently Filmfanatic.org called it "a tawdry, low-budget camp classic", criticising predictable elements but praising the dialog and some unexpected plot twists.[6] Fernando F Croce remarked on its "unusually blunt masochism" and sympathetic treatment of the femme fatale (who makes it out alive).[7]

Release and availability

It opened in New York on August 30, 1951.[8] Released only to secondary and independent theaters upon its 1951 release, Pickup was a box office disaster[citation needed], and has yet to receive a VHS or DVD release.

See also

References

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  5. "The New Pictures". Time, 0040781X, 8/27/1951, Vol. 58, Issue 9
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External links