Pickup (1951)

Director:

Hugo Haas

Writers:

Hugo Haas (writer)
Josef Kopta (novel)

Release Date:

24 July 1951 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Film-Noir

Tagline:

Murder was her mistake - marrying her was his!

Plot:

Low-budget, tabloid-lurid story with high camp value of older man falling for much younger beauty who's...

Plot Keywords:

Based On Novel

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

  (Complete credited cast)

Hugo Haas	...	Jan 'Hunky' Horak
Beverly Michaels	...	Betty Horak
Allan Nixon	...	Steve Kowalski
Howland Chamberlain	...	'The Professor', tramp
Jo-Carroll Dennison	...	Irma, Betty's friend
Bernard Gorcey	...	Peddler with Dog
Mark Lowell	...	Counter-man
Jack Daley	...	Company Doctor
Art Lewis	...	The Motorist
Marjorie Beckett	...	Woman In Crowd

Runtime:

78 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | USA:Approved (PCA #13859) | Sweden:15

Company:

Forum Productions

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Dungeon Girl (2008) (V)

Citizen Kane it ain't, but...

Citizen Kane it ain't, but Pickup isn't nearly as bad as one might think. Actor-director Hugo Haas deserves better, and I hope I can help the poor man (long departed) out. Haas,--no, I won't go into his career and background--let's just say the man had the reputation for being an okay actor, but as a director he was considered a sort of Central European version of Ed Wood. Pickup is about an older man, played by Haas, whose life is made a wreck of and nearly ruined by a toothy, gum-checking but withal irresistible blonde, portrayed by the unforgettable Beverly Michaels. The girl is, to be as genteel as possible, a worthless tramp, and nasty and stupid in the bargain. She plays with her adoring and naive lover like a cat with a mouse, and has an affair with a much younger man on the side. Amazingly, no one is murdered in the course of this film, which is actually at times quite sweet. Look, every novelist cannot write The Brothers Karamazov and every composer cannot write the Eroica, so why put down poor Mr. Haas whose only sin as an artist that I can tell is that is that he isn't Orson Welles. The man had a heart and soul, and this comes through in many scenes. He understands cruelty, too, and the woman in this film is, for all the melodrama, a not innacurate portrait of a certain kind of low-down broad who, if one were to show her videotapes of her inflicting her standard dose of pain on whoever the poor dope fool enough to get involved with her at the moment is, would shrug, light a cigarette and say, "Well, he was asking for it, wasn't he?". I'm not too sure about the character Mr. Haas plays in this film, but there is a kernel of truth in the mean little tale he tells; tacky though it may be, there's life in it nonetheless, which is good enough for me.