Pickup on South Street

My decision to watch another Samuel Fuller film last week accidentally led me to unfiltered cold war propaganda, wherein which informant and criminal alike dislike communism and when asked to explain why, bluntly state, "we just do".

Pickup on South Street doesn't share many reasons to justify its indiscreet candour, it just keeps returning to a shack by the ocean where a pickpocket's hidden secret microfilm and beer (Richard Widmark as Skip McCoy).

If he's caught breaking the law once again it's off to prison for the rest of his life, but he still can't think of anything better to do, so he commits crimes then entertains the police.

They're none too fond of his tactics and have even been suspended for related frank outbursts, the audacious confidence the unrestrained vigour driving them past stock predictable punishments.

They don't explain what the microfilm depicts but it's plain and clear the communists want it, but the pursuing agent doesn't anticipate his seductive love interest falling for McCoy (Jean Peters as Candy).

It's utterly ridiculous spy drama resoundingly critical of argument and thought, just bellicose guttural vindications of shortsighted impulse inanimate standing.

Not that the communists also didn't employ reckless stereotypical reckoning, but when capitalist realms saw an influx of unions there was much more equality less crime and strife (see The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone and the 1980s).

If the two ideologies vigorously balance their stern opposition through democratic means, they can constructively influence one another by forging compromises and embracing diplomacy (not on contemporary television).

A strong left attempts to ensure the reasonable distribution of goods to the curious many, who in turn respond with less crime and corruption since they don't have to struggle to find basic needs.

If the strong left is clever and thinks to the future it strives to ensure the businesses they work for thrive, to facilitate perennial financial sustainability with as much dependability as can be hoped for in a state of flux.

For proof of a left wing country that looks to the future in the capitalist world, look no farther than resolute Norway and its 16 Olympic Gold Medals.

I've wondered how such a tiny nation could so resiliently dominate the Winter Olympics, and I've concluded that the oil wealth it distributes far and wide means everyone can afford to ski and take lessons.

By enabling the majority of its population to take part in cherished winter pastimes, skiing in Norway is like soccer in Brazil, it's a brilliant way to distribute your wealth.

Eliminating the left from your culture and letting despots slowly take absolute control for decades, may leave your country in ruin, if you decide to take on the rest of the world (it's a common shortcoming of dictators).

Trudeau may be somewhat of a fool at times but he's no despot, no Putin, no Hitler.

Give me leaders like him who love all peoples every day at any moment (and hopefully hate the STASI).

Over the narrow-minded jingoistic alternative.

Shock Corridor

Just how far will one person go to win the Pulitzer Prize?

Journalist Johnny Barrett (Peter Breck) discovers an unsolved murder case and decides to engage in some psychological detective work of his own in order to bring the deceptive culprit to justice. After convincing a psychiatrist that he lacks sanity, his information hunt begins in a state mental hospital where three perennial residents witnessed the crime in question. Challenging his reason as he acclimatizes himself to life in the Shock Corridor, he discovers that when his clandestine lucidity is synthesized with a particular brand of patient curiosity, he can bring his troubled co-denizens back from the brink for long enough to unravel their valuable references. But his search is tempered by a mischievous and seductive mental quid pro quo that subtly reveals its malevolent intensity as he comes closer and closer to delineating the subject of his desire.

Through the passage of time.

Two of the three witnesses find themselves locked up because they have been unable to face the predominant homogenized semantic denominators that structure the social lives of their democratic communities, and have in turn embraced said denominators in a ridiculous fashion, thereby taking control of the means of production, subjectively situating themselves within positions of power.

One, while a prisoner of war, flirted with communism as a reaction against the bigotry that conditioned his family life growing up, and was given a dishonourable discharge after being exchanged. He was shunned afterwards and adopted the persona of an heroic confederate general to compensate.

The other, an African-American student attending a recently desegregated Southern University, was broken by the toxic racist sewer of white supremacy and reinvented himself as a grand wizard in the ku klux klan.

The third, being unable to handle the fact that he had helped to create weapons of mass destruction, reverted to an infantile state in order to forget the past.

Thus, in order for Johnny to solve the case and win his Pulitzer, he must function as an inclusive understanding open minded trustworthy citizen, thereby normalizing the activities his co-denizens engaged in prior to being committed in order to provide them with rational voices.

Unfortunately, Mr. Barrett was concerned primarily with winning the Pulitzer and not with capturing a criminal, and doesn't possess the fortitude required to individually combat madness's cloak and dagger, losing his voice in the process.

I think that's what Fuller's saying.

The Naked Kiss

Seeking redemption in the small town of Grantville, Kelly (Constance Towers) leaves behind her street walking lifestyle and finds a job as a nurse helping handicapped children. Her upbeat and dedicated personality make an immediate impact and she's able to start building a new life of her own.

But barriers lie in her way, established by Police Captain Griff (Anthony Eisley), who, having spent the night with her upon her arrival in town, passing his days watching new women arrive on the bus, seducing them, and then recommending that they find work at a sleazy night club, refuses to give her a fighting chance and consistently threatens her with full disclosure.

The situation erupts after her hand is sought by a wealthy local bachelor who has been instrumental in building the town, yet has a few secrets of his own.

Samuel Fuller's The Naked Kiss is blunt, bold, and bellicose, plunging headfirst into the inferno and intensely categorizing its flames. It proceeds at an accelerated pace, quickly moving from one scene to the next, confidently building a momentum whose volatile reactions simplify and complicate its rhythms.

Kelly's transformation is definitive and she uses her newfound energy to combat the forces which once constituted her moribund vitality. She thereby carves herself a place on the other side of the tracks whose foundations are troubled by the stereotypical baggage attached to her former way of life.

Some of the sharp distinctions maintained by The Naked Kiss could have used some more elaboration, but deviating from the film's over-the-top charge would have disoriented its ballistic aesthetic. Thoroughly advocating for personal transformations, it still oversimplifies what is necessary for these transformations to take place.