John Frankenheimer’s 52 Pick-Up is one of the better of the willfully decadent American thrillers from the 1980s that are preoccupied with drugs, guns, strippers, prostitutes, money, and the men who kill each other attempting to obtain them. Though this film isn’t generally mentioned in discussions of the adaptations of Elmore Leonard’s work, the crime master’s imprint is felt on the scenes that routinely threaten to elevate 52 Pick-Up from a sleazy, well-paced time-killer to an authentically good movie. Leonard’s sense of humor is under-emphasized, but his satirical notion of crime as a business beholden to the same petty political trivialities as more “legitimate” enterprises is explicitly accounted for.
When self-made industrialist Harry Mitchell (Roy Scheider) is blackmailed by a couple of vicious hoods, he remains unflappable while amusingly entering into negotiations with them over the terms of his exploitation. Though this is never fully acknowledged in Frankenheimer’s film, it’s clear that Harry’s relying on the mercenary skills that account for his success to undermine psychos who resent his wealth, suspecting that he’s just a blue-collar schnook who lucked into the white-collar life. The entirety of 52 Pick-Up is driven by Harry’s act of proving them fatally wrong, as he goes to work on them, driving them to circle one another rather than him.
The film’s best scenes explicitly concern this notion of blackmail as an elaborately pretentious pissing contest in which the stakes have been ludicrously magnified. When Harry traces the villains back to a strip club that was used to set him up, he speaks with Doreen (Vanity), a stripper who’s understood to trade on her body as consciously as Harry trades on his illusory wealth. Harry knows that Doreen knows who’s blackmailing him, and so the dance that he buys from her reflects seduction as the ultimate transmission of power.
This is a familiar theme to the crime genre, but Vanity and Frankenheimer invest Doreen with shrewdness of agency, which is embodied by a shot that shows her dancing from her own point of view as she looks at Harry. It’s a startlingly empathetic moment, considering that this genre usually depersonalizes strippers as trash to be put out with the other venal bad guys.
Harry’s negotiations with the head blackmailer, Alan Raimy (John Glover), a convicted rapist who’s parlayed his contempt for woman into a low-rung job as a strip-club manager, are just as distinctively imagined, particularly the sequence in which Harry invites Alan down to his factory to look at his books to prove that he’s not good for the amount that Alan wants. During these moments, the men could be buddies discussing a potential business investment.
A number of memorable performances allow these ironies to reach a fuller bloom than could normally be expected of a lurid 1980s American thriller, particularly one produced by Cannon Films. Scheider pivotally props the film up with his working-class physicality; he’s a performer who can convincingly wear a suit, drink a beer, and work on an insanely expensive sports car. And Glover pinpoints Alan’s evasiveness, which indicates a chicken-shit who’s playing at being a criminal as well as some sort of vaguely defined aesthete (a very Leonard-ian touch).
Perhaps most striking of all is Clarence Williams III’s terrifying performance as Alan’s partner, Bobby Shy, who intensifies 52 Pick-Up’s awareness of the troubled relationships between connected or moneyed whites and blacks with a prison stretch under their belts. Williams raises his already high voice, suggesting a paranoid hood who’s rendered almost mute by frustration and rage, especially in a volcanic moment between Bobby and Doreen. Frankenheimer’s film loses its sense of social texture in the last third when everyone begins to die by decree of formulaic three-act screenwriting, and its indifference to the plight of Harry’s wife (Ann-Margret) is unseemly, but it remains an often nightmarish gem awaiting rediscovery.
Image/Sound
Kino’s newly encoded 1080p HD transfer of 52 Pick-Up looks excellent. The speckling and black crush noted by some reviewers of the 2015 Blu-ray are nowhere to be seen. The muted palette and sculptured shadow play courtesy of cinematographer Jost Vacano reveal lots of depth and clarity of fine details. Flesh tones are lifelike, while grain is well-managed. Audio comes in a DTS Master Audio 2.0 mix that’s a workhorse, sturdily conveying dialogue, and doing quite nicely by Gary Chang’s vibrant, synth-heavy score. English SDH subtitles are available.
Extras
The new commentary track by filmmakers and historians Steve Mitchell and Edwin Samuelson focuses primarily on 52 Pick-Up’s two auteurs: John Frankenheimer and Elmore Leonard. Mitchell and Samuelson initially discuss the rocky road from the novel’s publication in the early 1970s to the film’s completion in 1986, including changes made by Leonard to his source material. Then they delve into Frankenheimer’s career, his penchant for deep-focus blocking and subtle camera movement, and his working relationship with Cannon Films’s Menachem Golan, who effectively granted him final cut. There are also some interesting tidbits on the L.A. shooting locations and the careers of the film’s stars and supporting actors.
The other major supplement on this disc is an isolated music track that opens with a nearly 40-minute interview with composer Gary Chang, who discusses his musical training, entry into the film world, and numerous musical collaborations with Frankenheimer, before then going into some detail about 52 Pick-Up’s various musical cues. Rounding out the slender supplemental package are several TV spots and the film’s theatrical trailer.
Overall
John Frankenheimer’s lurid, expertly crafted neo-noir 52 Pick-Up gets a sharp new presentation and some welcome bonus materials from Kino Lorber.
Since 2001, we've brought you uncompromising, candid takes on the world of film, music, television, video games, theater, and more. Independently owned and operated publications like Slant have been hit hard in recent years, but we’re committed to keeping our content free and accessible—meaning no paywalls or fees.
If you like what we do, please consider subscribing to our Patreon or making a donation.
