Pickup on South Street

How does the film relate to the chapter in Foner?

Since there is no mention of pickpockets or “cannons” in Foner’s chapter on the Cold War, the connection between this film and the chapter comes from the conflict between communism and anticommunism. Going along with section four in Foner’s chapter, the anticommunism aspect of this film is huge. When skip picks candy’s wallet on the train and discovers that it had secret government information on it, he immediately classifies her as a “red” or communist. She is unaware of this entirely, because Joey has been keeping his acts of treason and involvement with the soviets a secret from Candy. (Secrecy is another connection to Foner’s chapter). When Skip the cannon and Moe the woman who has all the information on the cannon’s and sells ties find out that Skip’s most recent pick pocket it involved with the communists, Moe says, “What are you doing with the commies skip?” This implies that working along side the communist party is even low in a cannon’s line of work. This relates to Foner because as he writes in his chapter on anticommunism, it seemed that everyone put communist relations at the top of the very bad to do list. Foner makes a statement that even members of the Hollywood elite were convicted and hated for conspiracy with the reds, and even in the film the lowest of the “class” do not want any involvement with it.

What can we learn about American culture during the time period by interpreting the film as a primary historical source?

By interpreting this film as a primary historical source, we can assume that American culture revolved around pick pocketing. While the police are usually involved with cannons like Skip, and learn there whereabouts from useful cannons like Moe, we learn that the police also are deeply involved in catching those who were passing government secrets on to the Soviets. This film doesn’t include too much culturally, other than the fact that both levels in class society are trying to make money. People like Skip and Moe make their money by stealing or conning, and people like Joey and his cronies make money by selling secrets to foreign governments.

What does this film reveal about attitudes towards gender, class, and race?

Attitudes about race are not revealed in this film. Class however, makes up the substance of the movie. Both class descriptions provided in this film look down upon each other, except of course Candy who has an undying love for Skip. The cannons look down upon law enforcement and those who make the money they steal, because they can profit from them just by reaching into their bags or pockets. The “upper class” frowns upon cannons because they are freeloading off of their hard earned money. Although Joey has a substantial amount of money, one might consider him a cannon because of his line of communist work. Also, the violence towards women (particularly Candy) was very extreme. This shows that women were viewed as less equal than men, because if she said something or did something the men didn’t approve of, she got slapped around.

What was the most important scene in the film?

The most important scene in this film is the epic fight between Joey and Skip. With one criminal fight against the other, you would expect to hope neither of them come out on top. However, with Skip’s charm and distaste for communism, you end up rooting for him to pull through to A) beat Joey because he’s a mean communist and beat the crap out of Candy, and B) because you don’t want Joey to successfully pass on secrets about nuclear weapons to enemy countries for profit.