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In so many of the discussions (recorded and written) that accompany Masters of Cinema’s new Blu-ray edition of Pickup on South Street, the critic finds some way to make apologies for the fact that not all of the film was shot on the streets. In fact, very little was. Then as now, New York is an unpredictable animal, difficult to harness in a medium that so predicated on reliability that the entire industry surrounding it moved across the country just to ensure the sun would always be out. But studio-set production is not antithetical to Samuel Fuller’s “whole thing.” He’s not the gritty realist perhaps even he’d like to be, even viewing his films in the context of the times. Fuller is more like a political cartoonist without a punchline. He has cleverness to spare, but no jokes. More importantly, his style of expression is dependent...