Pick Up (1933)

Overrated

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

A Clayton's murder mystery, or the murder mystery you have when you're not having a murder mystery! We know who the murderers are from the very first scene, namely the characters played by Sylvia Sidney and William Harrigan. Sidney is being released from jail after serving two years. Harrigan still has three years to go. On a rainy night, Sidney bumps into Raft's cab-driver who thinks she's a prostitute, but after some hesitation, invites her home. At this point the movie should have stopped and the plot raced forward to the scene in which Harrigan, escaped from jail, confronts Sidney, and she is arrested. Raft goes into hock to pay for her defense. And… Well that's how the script should have been constructed. Unfortunately, it would only run for twenty or thirty minutes. So between the noirish start and emotive conclusion of this film, we are treated to an irrelevant sub-plot about a depraved but super-lovely and filthy rich temptress (scorchingly played by Lillian Bond) who sinks her fangs into Raft who, it turns out, is a sucker for rich and ritzy playgirls. Of course this story allows Sidney to go through her patented pained and injured shtick, but I've seen her go through this emotive stunt so many times that it doesn't impact on me any more. It seems to take forever for Harrigan to escape from jail and the main plot to start moving again. But when it does, it's a wow and certainly well worth waiting for!

Sylvia Sidney was the princess of gloomy tragedy. No one could take the slaps of a heartless world as well as she. But by 1933 she was becoming dissatisfied with her many "down trodden" roles and it was films such as "Pick Up" that forced her to demand better roles. At least she got to co-star with her "perfect partner" (as far as looks went) - George Raft. They complemented each other in every way. A few years later he too would be fed up with "tough guy" roles but in 1933 he was a popular up and coming actor.With a story taken from sensation novelist Vina Delmar, "Pick-Up" starred Sylvia as "Baby Face" Mary who is just being released from prison after serving 2 years. Her husband still has 3 to go but Mary is determined to leave him and his confidence tricks behind and start a new, clean life. After seeking shelter from the rain and an unwanted admirer, she comes to the attention of Harry Glynn, a taxi driver, who thinks she is a prostitute. He picks her up - as the poster says "She is easy to get but hard to forget"!! and they are soon living together. He sees a column in the paper about "Baby Face" Mary and lets his feelings be known about "dames of that sort". Molly (Mary has decided not to tell him about her past) soon realises that Harry is a man without ambition - he is willing to go on working for a boss and putting away $10 a week. Molly has plans for him to go into partnership in a garage - she creates a scene at work with her lecherous boss (Clarence Wilson) and they both quit. Harry wants to marry her - but she is still married to the brute in jail, who keeps tabs on her with a spy on the outside.They have now made good and live a nice life in the country. Enter Muriel (Lillian Bond) the spoiled daughter of the local banker, who sets her cap at Harry when he rescues her water-logged car from the river. He is attracted to her and begins to be ashamed of his humble beginnings and the way he met Molly. Unbeknownst to Harry, Molly has found getting a divorce easier than she anticipated but Harry has some news of his own - he has fallen for Muriel!! It doesn't take him long to realise who the real "lady" is but when he goes back to the house he finds Molly has gone. Her "husband" has returned and tries to pick up where they left off - but Mary isn't having it. She knows he hasn't changed and in a surprise court room finish he tries to kill first Harry then Mary!!!Raft is at his best being a nice, regular guy (which is exactly what he was in real life) but falters when he has to be a meanie. He and Sylvia have great chemistry and this was the first of their three pictures together.Highly Recommended.

Sylvia Sidney had the unique ability to present herself as both vulnerable and tough as brass, and never more so than here. She is such a sympathetic character from the very first scene. Her Mary/Molly is no nonsense yet idealistic.Happily paired with George Raft as Harry, she is touching and involving throughout. Harry is an underachieving cab driver who is "satisfied" with the his low-rent life. It is amusing to watch her shove him up the ladder of success even when he does not necessarily see what she's doing.Because Mary is still married to a con she's afraid to divorce, she and Harry must live together, allowing others to assume they are married. The script does not blanch at this, nor at the heavy sexual aggressiveness of the rich gal who goes after Harry.Raft, of course, is gorgeous as usual, but here plays rather less worldly and more gullible than is usual for him. Harry's been around the block a few times, but can always get suckered.Well worth watching, and a nice warm-up for Raft and Sydney's later hookup "You and Me."

I enjoyed 'Pick-Up', but there were quite a few obstacles along the way. Sylvia Sidney plays a woman who's just being released from prison after a two-year sentence, but in the opening scene (in the prison governor's office) she's wearing elaborate makeup and her eyebrows are tweezed. In a supporting role, Lilian Bond's cut-glass British accent is distracting; an American actress should have been cast. Speaking of accents: Sylvia Sidney's honking Bronx accent is even more unpleasant than usual in this movie. Louise Beavers is stuck in her usual chucklin' maid role (cried Magnolia, this time), and the minstrel-show dialogue she's given here is even worse than usual. Learning that Sidney has been using a false identity, Beavers asks George Raft: 'Is you knowed she ain't she? She ain't HER?' Yassum!The biggest flaw in 'Pick-Up' is that the relationship between Sidney's and Raft's characters here anticipates their very similar relationship in a vastly better, later film: Fritz Lang's 'You and Me'. In both films, Sidney plays an ex-convict who is in love with Raft, but who lies to him about her past and her marital status.The soundtrack keeps playing overly-orchestrated background music at inappropriate moments. And there's a really weird scene at a 'kid party' thrown by Lilian Bond's playgirl character, which the guests -- all of them white, of course -- attend while dressed as very young children or babies. (They're waited upon by black women dressed as nursemaids.) I found it damned strange to watch several shapely young women cavorting in skimpy baby-girl outfits, escorted by men in nappies and bibs ... and I also wondered how all these idle rich people just happened to possess baby costumes that fit them. (I also wondered how badly the black women needed the money, that they'd be willing to humiliate themselves by nannying a bunch of spoilt adults.) Elsewhere, Charles Middleton makes a brief appearance ... though Middleton's fans may be disappointed that he plays a pleasant guy who's actually helpful for once.SPOILERS COMING. Raft, in patent-leather hair, plays a studly cab driver: several women in this movie make admiring comments about his manliness. He and Sidney 'meet cute' in circumstances which convince him she's a streetwalker. They develop a plausible but unusual relationship, eventually becoming flatmates and apparently lovers, though this pre-Code film is careful to establish that they sleep in separate beds. Raft offers to marry Sidney, but she tells him she's already got a husband. She doesn't let on that he's William Harrigan, doing time for aggravated manslaughter. Then Harrigan shows up, claiming he's out on parole but brandishing a handgun. The handgun is a revolver, but it's also an automatic ... an automatic parole violation. Except that Harrigan is on DIY parole: he broke out on the lam.Intriguingly and atypically, Raft here plays a man with no ambition at all, who gradually betters himself only because Sidney -- the woman behind the man -- keeps pushing him to take chances. When Sidney gets arrested and put on trial for murder, Raft -- even though he no longer loves her -- unhesitatingly gives up all his possessions (which he accumulated only through Sidney's guidance) to buy her the best legal defence. The film ends with Sidney acquitted, and with Raft worse off than when Sidney first met him: he started out broke; now he's skint and in debt. But the last scene is deeply touching, with some of Raft's best acting ever, and I'll rate this movie 7 out of 10.