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How others will see it. It's not a bad film. Give it its due. It's watchable throughout, if never credible, and there is both suspense and action. Furthermore, Peters is ravishing, and gets plenty of closeups.
How I felt about it. Now for the down side. You won't believe a moment of it. Or, at least you shouldn't. Peters is about to deliver microfilm to a Communist spy. She's being watched like a hawk by an experienced policeman. Yet, she's pickpocketed right in front of him. What are the odds? I ride subways every working day, and I've never heard of anyone getting robbed.
What happens next? The cops want to find Widmark to retrieve the microfilm. Fair enough. They bring in a paid informant, a nearly elderly Thelma Ritter, who knows every grifter in the city, how they operate, and where they live. How can Ritter possibly know these things?
But while Ritter will talk to the police, and she'll talk to Jean Peters (for money, of course), she won't talk to known Communists, even under the threat of death. Because, as we have all realized by 1953, Communists are the worst of all human elements, while career criminals are actually swell. Pickup on South Street leaves no doubt of this. The Reds are brutal killers with absolutely no sense of humor.
Meanwhile, career criminal Widmark suddently turns over a new leaf. He purchases a friend's corpse destined for Potter's Field, to give the dearly beloved a better sendoff. He gives beers to meddlesome policemen. Most curiously of all, he cracks the Red spy ring, risking his life to do so. Why? Because pretty Jean Peters falls in love with him.
Well, why is Peters in love with him? Didn't he rob her? Punch her in the jaw? Push her around? Cynically attempt to sell microfilm to the bad commies? Didn't he tell her he was in prison twice before? Why, in heaven's name, would she love a guy like this? Because it's a movie?
Perhaps the most difficult part of the story to swallow is the character of Jean Peters. She has been working for hardened Communist agents for some time now, without ever realizing it? She'll go to seemingly any length to get the microfilm back. Why? As a favor to her ex-boyfriend?
It's all nonsense, but agreeable nonsense, and most film noir fans won't actually care. So, enjoy the colorful characters, the dramatic haymaker fight scenes. Cheer for the good guy criminals to give the Communists what's coming to them. Don't let Grouchy here stop your fun.