Friday, January 27, 2012

Revisiting Pickup On South Street

My daughter Emma is taking a really interesting film class at Clark University with a Professor Michael Siegel
SCRN 120 - History of U.S. Film Since 1950 The history of post-WWII American cinema is the story of an ongoing series of adjustments to (or developments within the context of) instability in postwar film business: film noir, 3-D, biblical epics, blockbusters, art film influences, “new blood” from TV and film schools, Black filmmaking, revisionist genre films, high-concept filmmaking, etc. Further complicating this process of adjustments, cinema was overlaid onto, and consequently influenced by, the political turmoil within American society in general: the “Red Scare,” the Vietnam War, the emergence of a mass counterculture, the antiwar movement, Watergate, Reaganomics, the end of the Cold War and increasingly vocal demands by women and minorities for social equality (and media representation).
One of the films she viewed was Pickup On South Street. I've talked about the film and Sam Fuller several times here and I always assumed some scenes were filmed on location. Evidently according to this blogger they weren't. However, in part 2 of the film embedded above, it looks like at about the 5:36 mark a shot is filmed near the Brooklyn side of the Manhattan Bridge. I can make out other NYC shots in other scenes, but evidently the outdoor views from Widmark's dockside shack, towards the end of the clip above, are fake.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

When I'm 64


When I get older losing my hair,
Many years from now,
Will you still be sending me a valentine
Birthday greetings bottle of wine?
If I'd been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door,
Will you still need me,
will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four?
oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oooo
You'll be older too,
(ah ah ah ah ah)
And if you say the word,
I could stay with you.
I could be handy mending a fuse
When your lights have gone.
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday mornings go for a ride.
Doing the garden, digging the weeds,
Who could ask for more?
Will you still need me,
will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four?
Every summer we can rent a cottage
In the Isle of Wight, if it's not too drear
We shall scrimp and save Grandchildren on your knee  
Vera, Chuck, and Dave
Send me a postcard,
drop me a line,
Stating point of view.
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, Wasting Away.
Give me your answer,
fill in a form
Mine for evermore
Will you still need me,
will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four?