Pickup Alley

1957's Pickup Alley, or Interpol, directed by John Gilling, looks like a travelogue but evidently a lot of it was filmed in Naples. However, cinematographer Ted Moore did such a beautiful job - the locations are really the star.

The film begins with a woman calling "Charles" with urgent information; someone then enters and kills her.

She turns out to be the sister of an American narcotics agent Charles Sturgis (Victor Mature). The killer is international drug smuggler Frank McNally (Trevor Howard), and Sturgis is determined to bring him to justice.

With the aid of Interpol, he is able to track McNally and his girlfriend Gina (Anita Ekberg) to Europe.

Clearly a B movie using British and American actors, Pickup Alley is on the dull side without much in the way of characterization, except showing McNally's violence toward women. The old buildings, the streets, the docks, plus a chase on a roof make it interesting.

Ekberg is beautiful as McNally's drug mule but has been shown to much better advantage. She met Tyrone Power when she was an extra in Mississippi Gambler and embarked on a several year affair with him, even meeting his family in Cincinnati.

To avoid a lawsuit, wife Linda Christian's did not name her in her book, but she is clearly the woman for whom he wanted a divorce. He and Christian eventually reconciled. He liked blonds with accents.

Found in Noir Archive vol 3, this is a watchable English noir that has some perfunctory acting from Mature and Ekberg, along with enjoyable scene chewing from Howard--what a long way from The Third Man and Brief Encounter!--and a terrific cameo from Bonar Colleano, whom I don't recall seeing before.

You won't care about the plot--something to do with international heroin smuggling, a murky subject dealt with carelessly by John Gilling. The interest lies in the locales, which are beautifully shot by Ted Moore, who besides making a half dozen Bond films also won an Oscar for A Man For All Seasons. The catacombs scene might have come from an Orson Welles film, Othello say, it's that evocative.

This has got quite a field of recognisable talent, but the story is a bit thin. "Frank McNally" (Trevor Howard) is a ruthless drug dealer who makes a bit of a mockery of the efforts of Interpol to track him down. It's only when he kills the sister of US agent "Sturgis" (Victor Mature) that he finds a foe worthy of him. This fellow is much more determined, and quickly alights on the mule of the operation "Gina" (Anita Ekberg) trailing her all around Europe before finally honing in on his prey as "McNally" plots an huge job in New York. The format of the storyline takes a bit of a travelogue style and though that does give it some pace, it means we spend way too much time on planes, at airports and touring the sites rather than developing any characters of even a substantial plot. Neither Mature nor Howard really engage, Ekberg has practically no dialogue until the very end and the best effort comes from grifter Bonar Colleano's ("Amalio") who seems way more adept at tracking "McNally" than his policeman buddy. The ending is weak - it's more of a testament to the effectiveness of global policing and communications that it is to a thriller, and I felt the whole thing just lacked oomph.

This is quite an entertaining & energetic crime movie, which rattles along at a fairly brisk pace, but suffers somewhat from lack of character depth, and interaction between the characters. The leads all play their respective roles professionally and with a degree of panache, with the oily and sinister Trevor Howard particularly effective. Bonar Colleano also contributes a likable cameo as a fast-talking, quick-witted exiled American. In the central role, Victor Mature is dour and doesn't really get the opportunity to express more of his character's dual purpose of personal revenge and bringing an arch criminal to justice. Although there are many similar type films to this, I feel that it stands worthy comparison to many of them and is certainly deserving of release on DVD.

A film unconsistently complicated, which thing adds nothing to the plot, but rather deprives it of clearness and smoothness.

A film in which all the faces look the same (apart from V. Mature's and A. Ekberg's, the only woman among the characters), so you don't really know, at times, who is doing what.

A film with many guns shootings, in whose - as it happens in so many films of the same genre - rarely any man of some importance happens to be shot. Bulletts completely obey the filmmakers' will.

A film where the final chase brings no thrill whatsoever, as no thrills are to be expected from the whole movie. It's not really a whodunit: you know from the start who the villain is, you only have to be patient enough for him to get caught.

Locations range from New York, Paris, Lisbon, Rome, Athens. Curiously enough, when in Rome you can hear Italian phrases pronounced with a strong American accent, while when in Athens, the backround chatter is mostly in pure Italian, and repeatedly proposed in loops of a few seconds' duration. Sometimes the filmmakers get a little confused, and even signs and labels, when in Greece, are in Italian.