Rating: 3.5/5
Pickpocket Skip McCoy steals Candy’s wallet in a busy subway car. Once she realizes it’s gone, she calls her ex, Joey, to let him know her final favor has gone awry
Zara, a government agent, asks the police for help in tracking down the pickpocket, believing the content of Candy’s wallet will lead him to a communist spy ring
Film noir loves giving a crooked man one last shot at redemption, so Skip McCoy may get the opportunity to become a Citizen of the USA 🇺🇸 If he’d just come clean
— Do you know what treason means? — Who cares?
The plot is dumb, and the lighting is pretty rote, except for a few good scenes. The meat here is the long shots and the sweaty close-ups, giving the actors time to develop emotion over time and for scenes to quietly build up tension — a stylistic choice that Bresson later borrows for his film Pickpocket
The choreography for the fights is also pretty great, and the coverage on it is fantastic
Despite the dull propaganda, the film, intentionally or not, doesn’t paint American life as the” land of the plenty”
It's so hard to get up in the morning, get dressed, walk the streets, climb the stairs. I go right on doing it. Well, what am I gonna do, knock it? I have to go on making a living so I can die... I'm so tired. You'd be doing me a favor, blowing my head off
A flawed but significant film noir. And it’s sub-90 minutes!
Stray Thoughts
- If Jean Peters looked at me like that opening shot of her on the subway, I would simply not steal her purse