Film Noir; Review of 'Pickup on South Street' (1953)

It was surprisingly simple to learn the characteristics that make a movie a ‘film noir’ movie. Always aware of the genre, I never knew what it described but imagined it indicated fairly stringent visual style. Now my understanding is that the term film noir refers more to narrative elements than the artistic merits implied by its name. Thankfully, these narrative aspects were easily apparent in Pick Up on South Street: the moral ambiguity of its characters, their cynicism, questionable motivations, etc. Visually, much of the story unfolds at night, another film noir trait. I enjoyed decoding the underworld language, an embellishment for the essentially simple story that lays at the film’s core.