{"id":2001,"date":"2006-12-14T15:17:10","date_gmt":"2006-12-14T22:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=2001"},"modified":"2021-01-22T23:11:20","modified_gmt":"2021-01-23T06:11:20","slug":"pickup-1951","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=2001","title":{"rendered":"Pickup (1951)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>&#8220;She has a good husband, a nice home, a car, no worries about tomorrow &#8212; what else does she want?&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/12\/Pickup-Poster.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/12\/Pickup-Poster-194x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"194\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-22842\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/12\/Pickup-Poster-194x300.jpg 194w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/12\/Pickup-Poster-82x128.jpg 82w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/12\/Pickup-Poster.jpg 259w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 194px) 100vw, 194px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong><br \/>\nA sexy gold digger (Beverly Michaels) marries a naive widower (Hugo Haas) for his pension money.\n<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n<strong>Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Cuckolds<\/li>\n<li>Deafness<\/li>\n<li>Femmes Fatales<\/li>\n<li>Gold Diggers<\/li>\n<li>Hugo Haas Films<\/li>\n<li>Love Triangle<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Review: <\/strong><br \/>\nIn his first independently produced American film, Czechoslovakian director Hugo Haas took a fairly standard tale of greed and cuckoldry and turned it into a tawdry, low-budget B-classic. He&#8217;s aided in no small part by sexy Beverly Michaels&#8217; performance: while she&#8217;s no great actress, her droll sneers and deadpan delivery are perfect here; she never overplays her scenes, instead allowing an air of false insouciance to envelope her every move. Only during a critical moment towards the end of the film &#8212; when she must give up control and rely on someone else to carry out her wishes &#8212; does she reveal that her nerves may be made of less than steel; watching her fumble to light a cigarette, one realizes just how calm she&#8217;s been until then. Haas&#8217;s screenplay is overly predictable (particularly the love triangle aspect), and his cuckolded character is too naive to be believed; but the film is redeemed by plenty of zingy dialogue, some creative plot twists (including Haas&#8217;s sudden deafness), and Michaels&#8217; sultry allure. Definitely a worthy B-flick.\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>Redeeming Qualities and Moments: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Beverly Michaels as the conniving femme fatale<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/12\/Beverly2.JPG\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/12\/Beverly2.JPG\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1997\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li>Michaels mugging to her friend as she randomly picks up the clueless Haas at a diner<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/12\/Pickup3.JPG\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/12\/Pickup3.JPG\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1998\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li>Good use of psychosomatic deafness as a plot device<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/12\/Deafness.JPG\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/12\/Deafness.JPG\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2000\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li>Effectively gritty locales<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/12\/Setting.JPG\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/12\/Setting.JPG\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1999\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Must See? <\/strong><br \/>\nYes. This enjoyably pulpy flick epitomizes Hugo Haas&#8217;s B-level sensibility. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Categories<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Important Director<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Links: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/imdb.com\/title\/tt0043919\/\">IMDb entry<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1951\/08\/31\/archives\/the-screen-in-review-pickup-hugo-haas-film-about-widower-and.html\">NY Times Original Review<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;She has a good husband, a nice home, a car, no worries about tomorrow &#8212; what else does she want?&#8221; Synopsis: A sexy gold digger (Beverly Michaels) marries a naive widower (Hugo Haas) for his pension money. Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors: Cuckolds Deafness Femmes Fatales Gold Diggers Hugo Haas Films Love Triangle Review: In his first independently produced American film, Czechoslovakian director Hugo Haas took a fairly standard tale of greed and cuckoldry and turned it into a tawdry,&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=2001\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2001"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65253,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2001\/revisions\/65253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}