Pickup (1951) User Reviews

Surprisingly Decent! Hugo Haas Done It Right

[secragt · 8/10 · 16 April 2003]

The reviewer who said "Citizen Kane it ain't" got it right. This is lowbrow stuff to be sure, but for what it is, Haas demonstrates a surprisingly keen eye for both dialogue and characterization, two things supremely lacking in the cheaper and lesser BAIT produced a few years later. Best of all, this is a highly entertaining ride, with a solid and credible performance by Haas as the pigeon who all but begs for a plucking until he sees the light (or rather hears the dark) when he overhears the plotting and venomous bile directed at him by his conniving and venal wife, who believes him to be deaf.

Trumping all however is the bravura dominatrixesque performance of Ms. Michaels as the throaty pointy-bra'ed femme fatale. Here's one of the few broads I've ever come across who might be able to actually compete with Ann Savage's mouthy and devouring DETOUR chippie for supremacy over a castrated male race. And leave the male species begging for more.

Also in the movie's favor is a reasonably tight storyline which features some nice twists and reveals with great gusto the true depths of treachery to which Michaels gleefully stoops to get her $7300 out of Haas. Again, this isn't DOUBLE INDEMNITY and it certainly isn't Shakespeare but it's charmingly pulpy and has an agreeably creamy evil nougat centre.

Revenge is a dish best served cold...

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 13 December 2015]

Betty (Beverly Michaels) is a cheap dame down on her luck. When she finds herself broke and homeless, she decides very impulsively to marry a very ordinary looking older man, Hunky Horak (Hugo Haas). There certainly is no love involved in her part...she just knows this hard-working man has some money. Soon, this tramp is bored. After all, Hunky is a relatively dull guy and they're living in the middle of no where. To make things worse, Hunky loses his hearing and she is not about to take care of any guy with a disability. Unknown to her, he's in a traffic accident and regains his hearing. But instead of telling Betty, he keeps it to himself because he overhears her saying a lot of awful things about wanting to divorce him and how she never loved him in the first place! She also flirts again and again with Hunky's supposed friend...and all the time, Hunky just listens and absorbs it all and shows no sign that he understands her hellish comments. The audience just knows that sooner or later, Hunky is going to burst...but what will he do and when?!

In many ways, this film plays like a reworking of "The Postman Always Rings Twice"...except that HE knows that's coming and he's at a huge advantage instead of the poor sucker in "The Postman". Fortunately, despite the very low budget of "Pickup" and the relatively unknown actors, it works well because of decent writing, direction and wonderful acting by Beverly Michaels. She's just awful...and in a great femme fatale way and does a dandy job in making this character thoroughly despicable. She is much more coarse and nasty than Lana Turner in the other film...delightfully so.

As for the ending, it caught me off guard and the husband didn't do at all what I expected. Some might be disappointed but it was very entertaining and worth seeing.

Citizen Kane it ain't, but...

[telegonus · 7/10 · 2 April 2001]

Citizen Kane it ain't, but Pickup isn't nearly as bad as one might think. Actor-director Hugo Haas deserves better, and I hope I can help the poor man (long departed) out. Haas,--no, I won't go into his career and background--let's just say the man had the reputation for being an okay actor, but as a director he was considered a sort of Central European version of Ed Wood. Pickup is about an older man, played by Haas, whose life is made a wreck of and nearly ruined by a toothy, gum-checking but withal irresistible blonde, portrayed by the unforgettable Beverly Michaels. The girl is, to be as genteel as possible, a worthless tramp, and nasty and stupid in the bargain. She plays with her adoring and naive lover like a cat with a mouse, and has an affair with a much younger man on the side. Amazingly, no one is murdered in the course of this film, which is actually at times quite sweet. Look, every novelist cannot write The Brothers Karamazov and every composer cannot write the Eroica, so why put down poor Mr. Haas whose only sin as an artist that I can tell is that is that he isn't Orson Welles. The man had a heart and soul, and this comes through in many scenes. He understands cruelty, too, and the woman in this film is, for all the melodrama, a not innacurate portrait of a certain kind of low-down broad who, if one were to show her videotapes of her inflicting her standard dose of pain on whoever the poor dope fool enough to get involved with her at the moment is, would shrug, light a cigarette and say, "Well, he was asking for it, wasn't he?". I'm not too sure about the character Mr. Haas plays in this film, but there is a kernel of truth in the mean little tale he tells; tacky though it may be, there's life in it nonetheless, which is good enough for me.

A solid Haas

[XhcnoirX · 7/10 · 20 May 2016]

Railroad worker and widower Hugo Haas is looking for a new companion after his dog died. But instead of a new dog, he finds golddigger Beverly Michaels. When she discovers he has thousands of dollars in a savings account, she digs her fangs deep into him and they get married. When Haas loses his hearing all of a sudden, and early retirement seems imminent, things are looking up for Michaels, who's unable to get to the money, and unhappy living in a remote house next to railroad tracks. She turns her female attention to fellow railroad worker Allan Nixon, to get him to push Haas off a cliff to his death, which seems to be the only way to get to the money. What they don't know however is that Haas has regained his hearing.

Haas ('Bait', 'Hit And Run') does not have the best reputation as a director/actor, but he's really not that bad, he's just not that good either. Maybe I'm too nice tho, but there is something likable about Haas, as if he almost cannot contain his enthusiasm for his projects. And truth be told, he's quite good here as the naive and friendly widower. His wife at the time, Michaels ('Blonde Bait'), is not exactly the best actress, but she knows how to effectively use her abilities here. She brings the same lurid sexiness to the table as his future muse Cleo Moore, and it fits the character to a tee. Nixon is simply not that good, which might explain why his career never really went anywhere (tho apparently his off-screen behavior didn't exactly help either).

Haas and experienced B-movie DoP Paul Ivano ('Black Angel', 'The Suspect') do some pretty decent work behind the camera, even tho visually the movie isn't all that striking. But it's a really competently made movie that doesn't have any dragging parts. In fact, the main negative for me was the sudden and overly sappy/happy ending, which felt out of place. Thankfully that was only a few minutes of an otherwise decent watch. Solid stuff overall tho. 7/10

Michaels takes no prisoners.

[st-shot · 7/10 · 3 January 2017]

B-movie masochist Hugo Haas gets worked over by lanky ballbuster Evelyn Michaels in the B queen's first lead where she lays waste to a couple of paramours who fail to see past her pretty face into her ugly soul before falling victim. Haas may gain sympathy but Michaels commands the screen.

Widower Jan"Hunky" Horak runs the train depot away from town. Melancholy over the recent death of his dog Haas goes to the town fair to purchase a dog but he haggles over the price and instead finds himself distracted by Betty awing the local males while riding side saddle displaying some impressive gams. Instead of bringing a puppy home he brings her and they soon wed. Being a stationmaster's wife may not be her cup of tea but she's seen his bank book which makes her stay put. She's soon flirting with Steve (Allan Nixon) who fills in at the station and when Horak suddenly loses his hearing they brazenly plot in front of him.

The limited acting abilities of Michaels are simply cancelled out by the uber cynical Betty with her relentless pursuit of a life on easy street if only momentarily. She can toy but once in charge holds nothing back. Haas is a bit of a European Steiger before Steiger does some interesting emoting especially when confronting the ugly truth while pretending to hear nothing. Nixon's ambiguity gives Steve a decency allowing for conflicting emotion while Howard Chamberlain as a vagabond and on to Betty's game remains on the periphery getting his barbs in.

Haas direction is both steady and imaginative especially when dealing with Jan's deafness and while some scenes have a ragged finish there are flashes of suspense that crackle as Michaels emasculates and Haas crumbles. His introduction of Betty riding side saddle on a merry go round, the horse moving her body up and down in low angle dominating both the shot and the gaze of nearly every man at the fair is as in your face a femme fatale introduction as you might find in noir.

Haas would later trade in Michaels in favor of Cleo Moore as his B queen. The more voluptuous Moore may have had more talent and range as an actress but she lacked her ability to convey the tough as nails resolve and misandry Michaels possessed.

The one about the golddigger who marries an older man

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 14 September 2021]

Hugo Haas stars with Beverly Michaels in "Pickup" from 1951.

Haas plays Jan Horak, a widower, a frugal one, who catches the eye of golddigger Betty (Beverly Michaels) at a carnival. She gets a meal out of him, but when she sees where he lives near the railroad tracks -he's a track manager - she loses interest. Then she happens upon his bank book that has $7300 - $76,000 in 2021 money.

Wedding bells soon chime, along with boredom, misery, and an attractive suitor (Alan Nixon). Things look up when Jan loses his hearing - well, if he can't hear the trains, maybe he can collect his pension and they can move to town, get a house, and she can be bored in a better situation.

At some point, though, Jan gets his hearing back and overhears the things she says about him to his colleague (her boyfriend).

This is a fun movie. There was something warm and pathetic about Hugo Haas, and he does a good job here. Someone compared Michael to Ann Savage - that's about right. She has a low, mean voice, a pouty mouth, and she's trash with a capital T.

Haas made low budget movies and is best known for his association with Cleo Moore. For B noirs, you can't beat him.

The great pretenders

[ulicknormanowen · 7/10 · 2 March 2022]

First film by a Jewish Czech actor /director who fled away from Nazism; "pickup " sets a pattern for some other of his works " strange fascination" and "bait" notably.

The man subject of the middle-age crisis who falls for a girl who could be his daughter and who marries him for his dough is a well-known tale ; she's a great pretender ,but her dream won't last long ; when she enters the place where she's about to live,she echoes Bette Davis' line (" what a dump!") in "beyond the forest" (1949) : "what's that shack!" "what a charming view! ":the window looks onto the railroad track and the railroad man has still six years to do before he retires ; enter the middle-age man's young handsome nephew ,and then you expect a development a la "the postman always rings twice" (3 versions, the second one by Garnett was released in 1946),for there's a question of insurance.

Hugo Haas a tendency to dwell on the sordid side of life : almost a masochist,particularly in the films I mention above ,his parts are not unlike those of Erich Von Stroheim after he stopped directing (particularly his roles in France) and Emil Jannings ' in Sternberg's " das blaue Engel" (1930); But, and this is what makes the difference with the usual deadly love triangle, the unfortunate hubby becomes a great pretender too, pretending he is deaf .The young lover is not completely fooled :"I tell you he hears it all , he reads on our lips" .

The ending may have been imposed by the producers ,for ,now that the cheated man has come to dominate the game in his way ,and considering his rival's weakness,the ending could have been true film noir ,and moral at that.

Not Bad At All

[BILLYBOY-10 · 7/10 · 24 December 2015]

Widowed Hugo Hass lives in a shack by the railroad tracks doing something for the Southern Pacific. His dog just died so he knows of a guy selling puppies at the carnival, so he gets all dressed up and there he meets a blonde floozy who scams him and when she finds out he's got $7,300 ($68k in 2015 money) she marries him. Soon tho, he goes deaf and she is non too happy having to take care of him. He goes into town to see the Doctor and a car hits him, he falls to the ground and when he wakes up he can hear again. He rushes back to the shack but before he can tell his tramp bride he hears her and hunky Steve, the guy who took his place talking about him. She calls him names to his face and smiles, he pretends he can't hear. Soon she scams Steve into believing he beat her and gets him to take the old guy out for some rail repairs and shove him off a cliff, but he can't do it, so floozy has had it and packs her bag and leaves. His old hobo pal comes in and he has a puppy for him and all's well that ends well. This is not film noir. Its just a nice easy to watch tale, original story done well.

A Blast!

[evanston_dad · 9/10 · 4 September 2018]

"Pickup" is the best kind of film noir. Cheap, tawdry, lurid, and funny, all at the same time.

This film has obtained cult status for being such a good bad movie, but I didn't think it was even bad. It's quite good actually, not least because it knows just how seriously to take itself, which isn't much. Hugo Haas is a very winning presence as the film's beleaguered protagonist, a kind of poor man's Frank Morgan. But the film's best asset is undeniably Beverly Michaels as the towering, glowering femme fatale. Wait till you get a load of this broad and her way of disdainfully tossing off a one liner. I still can't decide whether or not Michaels was a terribly bad actress in a phenomenally entertaining way, or whether she plays this role brilliantly. All I know is that she had me rolling with practically every line she delivered, and the film's final line perfectly sums up the audience's feelings about her by the time this film wraps up.

I saw "Pickup" as part of a noir festival, and it probably made a huge difference to see it with a live audience who was totally into it.

Grade: A

Clever But Cheaply MadePlay On An Ancient Marital Trope

[Denise_Noe · 7/10 · 30 October 2022]

Hugo Haas was a director, screenwriter, and actor who fled Nazi-occupied Europe for Hollywood during World War II. Although he never reached A-list status, he contributed quite a bit to B-movies. In Pickup, he directed the movie, co-authored its screenplay with Arnold Lipp, and stars.

The role he plays is that of middle-aged railroad dispatcher Jan "Hunky" Horak. Hunky is an amiable widower whose job requires that he live in relative isolation on the outskirts of town. His best friend is "the Professor," a hobo with intellectual pretensions and a quasi-beatnik affect. When we meet Hunky, his dog has just died and he plans to go into town to purchase a replacement.

There is indeed a fellow selling puppies but Hunky finds the price too high so he goes puppy-less to a diner.

When we first see the femme fatale of the movie, the human "pickup," Betty Horak is riding the horse on a carousel. Betty is played by Beverly Michaels, a B-movie blonde beauty known for her being statuesque. Those shapely legs seem to go on forever and she returns the gazes of male admirers with a world-weary smile.

Betty is impoverished as is her female friend (not "girlfriend" in today's parlance) Irma (Jo-Carroll Dennison), a dark-haired beauty. The two women sit on a bench with Irma fantasizing out loud about a rich meal. "What, no champagne?" Betty rhetorically asks after Irma finishes. Betty spots the plain-looking and rather chunky "Hunky" and tells Irma to watch while Betty shows her the ancient power of femininity over the male gender.

The drop-dead gorgeous young woman sits beside Hunky at the diner. Using classic feminine wiles, she gets Hunky to pick up the check for her. He then takes her to visit his out-in-the-sticks residence. Inside his home, she noses around and finds he has a bank balance with a hefty sum for the time period.

We see a scene in which both Betty and Irma have been evicted by their landlady. A desperate Betty wonders how she can get a roof over her head. The next scene is her wedding to Hunky.

Betty has financial security; chunky Hunky has a lovely wife. The honeymoon soon fades. Unlike "the Professor," Betty is no bookworm so there is not much to keep her entertained.

Enter handsome, young, and penniless Steve (Alan Nixon). They soon have the hots for each other as we expect.

The chief complication in the story occurs when Hunky suddenly loses his hearing. This could actually improve the situation for Betty as he might be able to pull early retirement as a disabled man. In the meantime, she is increasingly frustrated and, as we also probably expect, those frustrations lead her to want Hunky out of the way.

"Pickup" is often said to be a low-rent version of "The Postman Always Rings Twice." But the films do not have much in common with each other. Much of what distinguishes "Pickup" is Hunky's deafness and, later, the question of whether or not his hearing has returned. Could he be faking his lack of hearing? Steve is suspicious on this score but Betty is not so she often calls him "an old monkey" and "a sucker" when he sits right beside her.

"Pickup" has a certain importance in film history as it may have helped launch the 1950s cycle of "bad girl" films. Although its basic pattern of an unloving union between a homely older man and a greedy young beauty is part of the folklore of marriage, "Pickup" has fresh surprises based on the disability factor.

Performances are not Oscar level but are adequate. There is, however, an inconsistency in the character of Betty Horak. No fault can be ascribed to the performance of Beverly Michaels as the problem resides in the script.

Taller than most actresses, Michaels possessed considerable allure, stage presence, and acting ability. However, the character of Betty veers from manipulative and sensual femme fatale to, in Betty's own words, that of a "grouch." Complaining and carping are hardly sexy. What's more, the script often calls for Michaels to be seen doing household chores like ironing and cooking, often sporting an apron, and the effect is that Betty Horak becomes a faded "hausfrau" slouching toward being a plain old "B-word." The shortcomings in the film are not greater than its clever twists or the sexual power Michaels possessed when she was called upon to express it. It is an interesting and clever twist to an old pattern.

Great film noir with touches of BLUE ANGEL and POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE

[adrianovasconcelos · 8/10 · 28 October 2022]

Czechoslovakia-born Hugo Haas does a fantastic job of directing, writing the screenplay and enacting the main part in PICKUP. He certainly deserves top marks for that tripartite effort.

He is helped by excellent cinematography from Paul Ivano, sharp editing from WL Bagier, and a convincingly dissolute performance from beautiful, lanky, brooding Beverley Michaels. Howland Chamberlain also does well as the down and out intellectual who steals books from the town library and keeps quoting from them. He is the Jiminy Cricket, the conscience everyone finds irrelevant - even Jan Horak, who fails to listen to the intellectual's advice to get a dog at the beginning of the fim.

Instead, Horak (Haas) gets himself a beautiful wife who is clearly a gold digger, sleeps in different quarters - you get the feeling that there is no sex in that relation - and starts cheating the moment handsome Allan Nixon turns up.

Jan Horak's temporary deafness is exceedingly well exploited. Haas' acting is sublime throughout, the highest point being when he hears wife and lover plotting against him, and he laughs with tears streaming down.

This B pic borrows a little bit from Germany's DER BLAUE ENGEL (1931), in which an older man falls for a much younger and uncaring Marlene Dietrich, and from THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE (US 1944), but it diversifies the story lines completely and it holds its own without ever coming into plagiarism territory. PICKUP should earn Hugo Haas a far better reputation than it did while he was alive. In the late 50s, early 60s some rated him the foreign Ed Wood in Hollywood, which was unfair and insulting in the extreme.

I enjoyed it very much and wholeheartedly recommend it. 8/10.

Lurid And Meant To Be

[boblipton · 7/10 · 1 August 2023]

Hugo Haas is in charge of a tank stop on the railroad. When he brings Beverly Michaels home, she gets a look at his bank book and decides to marry him. It's tough, out in the middle of nowhere, but there's young Allan Nixon whom she captivates. Meanwhile she urges Haas to claim some disability so he can retire with the cash and a pension and they can get away. Then Haas has an accident while surveying the tracks, and loses his hearing. Miss Michaels grows wilder; when another accident restores his hearing, before he can tell her, he hears her slanging him and pretends to still be deaf, while Miss Michaels urges Nixon to kill him.

Haas' first American movie as writer/director/producer was done on a tiny budget, and then sold to Columbia for distribution at a handsome profit. Although it looks like it was based on THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE Twice with a Tobacco Road air, it's actually based on a Czech novel. It's film noir at its cheapest and most tawdry, and glories in its filth, with Miss Michaels giving a fine performance. Haas would do the same thing almost a score of times through 1962. He would die in 1968 at the age of 67.

Big gal Beverly Michaels chief attraction of cut-rate masochistic fantasy

[bmacv · 5/10 · 19 April 2003]

Was Fritz Lang a fan of Hugo Haas? Distinctive elements of both Lang's Clash by Night and Human Desire are foreshadowed in Haas' Pickup (there's also an element left over from Jean Renoir's Woman on the Beach). But Czech-born Haas, a starvation-budget auteur of the 1950s, lacked the depth and style of his European colleagues. That's not so terrible, except that he also lacked their nerve, and as an actor rooted in comedy, the nerve for noir.

Towering Beverly Michaels finds herself on queer street and spots in lonely widower Haas a way off of it. He mans a milk-run railroad pit-stop but has $7300 in the bank; she knows because she snuck a look at his passbook and married him for it. Trackside life soon proves a drag for the high-maintenance blonde, however, and she nags him to fake a disability so they can take early retirement and move back to the comparatively bright lights of town; she also strikes up a romance with his relief man Allan Nixon.

Fate intervenes when Haas is suddenly struck deaf, putting his pension within reach. But just as suddenly he gets a face full of fender on a trip into town and regains his hearing – unbeknownst to his wife and his assistant. He listens impassively as they boldly exchange endearments, and just as mutely when Michaels works the flirtatious talk around to murder....

The strongest hand Haas has going for him in Pickup is Michaels, his off-screen wife at the time. Her grasp of the gold-digger's ways was as firm as that of any actress, and her physical stature was exceeded only by Hope Emerson's. But otherwise the film's cheapness shows; apart from scenes at a carnival which look like stock footage, the action is confined to Haas' shanty and a stretch of railroad track. And, having indulged himself in a masochistic fantasy, Haas seems too timid to follow it where it seems bound to go, taking abrupt refuge in a jarring change of tone just at the end. And that end, too, foreshadows the final shot of another Beverly Michaels film, Russell Rouse's Wicked Woman: Her bags packed, she hits the road.

If you could see what Hugo Haas hears..

[AlsExGal · 7/10 · 12 November 2021]

... you would probably be not so patient.

Hugo Haas is the Orson Welles of this production - writer, director, star. He plays Jan Horak, a middle aged man with simple tastes, winding down his career of walking the railroad tracks and looking for maintenance issues. He's a widower who gets his pension in six years. He meets gold digger Betty (Beverly Michaels) at a local carnival. She is the aggressor here, eager for money. Eventually, she and Jan talk, they even see each other a few times. But Betty wants everything now, and Jan is a slow and steady wins the race kind of guy, so she decides to move on to more agreeable prey. Except she is being thrown out of her rooming house and the landlady is going to sic the law on her if she does not pay her back for some stuff that belonged to her that Betty hocked. In case you haven't picked up on it yet, Betty is completely bad news.

Desperate, she gets Jan to marry her so she can at least have a roof and stay out of jail. The day after their wedding Jan suddenly and completely loses his hearing, so he is going to retire early due to his disability. But a car hits him and somehow that restores his hearing. He goes home to tell Betty the good news, but overhears her talking about how she wants out because she married a healthy man and now he is a cripple. So he plays deaf to find out what she is up to, and quickly realizes he has married a monster.

In the meantime she becomes involved with Steve, a younger man who is going to be taking over walking the tracks from Jan since he is retiring. And this is odd because Steve knows what she is. She ruined a friend of his and tells Steve straight up she is dumping Jan because he is deaf but first she wants to empty his bank account. Subtlety is not her forte. What would happen to Steve if he runs out of health or money?

So Jan hears her plotting with Steve, hears about going to a lawyer seeing if she can get money in a divorce, hears her saying she could get his money if she and Jan had a joint account - Jan refuses to sign the paperwork. And when all else fails she convinces Steve that Jan is beating her to get him to murder Jan. All the time Jan is pretending to be deaf. Watch yourself and see how this all pans out.

This is a very low budget film. Most of the film is three people in a couple of rooms - Jan, Betty, and Steve. The rest are shots of preexisting exteriors. Hugo Haas gives the best performance, probably because he wrote and directed this so he knew what he wanted from his character. Beverly Michaels could probably have done well in higher budget noirs, but apparently she was very hard to get along with according to Haas.

This is a pretty good noir with a most unusual script, and I'd recommend it.

Trashy, Well Done Noir From Haas

[shark-43 · 7/10 · 11 January 2024]

Hugo Haas had a fascinating life - a top actor in his native Czech Republic, he lost everything when the Nazis took over. He escaped just in time but he lost many relatives in the concentration camps. Coming to America, he established himself as a working character actor throughout the 1940s but in the early 50s Haas started making films himself - they usually were looked down upon by the critics of the day but a few did very good box office - like PICK UP. The film is now regarded as a terrific little noir and Haas is good as well as the femme fatale Beverly Michaels. If you enjoyed PICK UP, check out some of Haas' other films THE GIRL ON THE BRIDGE, BAIT, THE OTHER WOMAN, HIT & RUN, HOLD BACK TOMORROW, etc. Yes, they are low budget but they are always interesting and filled with good performances.

pickup

[mossgrymk · 7/10 · 16 January 2024]

Liked it a lot better than the previous Hugo Haas offering on Noir Alley, "Hit And Run". I agree with Eddie Muller that the light hearted, but not syrupy, ending to a fairly dark film is most welcome. It is also not easy to pull off without becoming jarringly discordant, but Haas manages it quite well. I also agree with Eddie that it is good, for a change, to see the femme fatale get away with her misdeeds... and flip Howland Chamberlain the raspberry in the process. Don't know how Haas managed to slip this by the censors. Maybe they did not deign to view such poverty row, B picture stuff all that acutely. In any case, it's refreshing. Give it a B minus and it would have been higher if Beverly Michaels weren't such a mediocre actress. Her range goes from sneering to snarling and back again to sneering. Or maybe that's just how Haas and his co scenarist, Arnold Phillips, wrote her character. And her paramour, Alan Nixon, is not a whole lot better! All of which shows to go you that in el cheapo productions like this the first casualty is usually the acting.

PS...An exception to the general "meh-ness" of the performers is Chamberlain who is sadly likable as a vag who steals books to read them. A most eccentric concept. This guy probably would have been one of Hollywood's best character actors had it not been for old man Blacklist.

actually pretty nice

[jmarecek · 8 March 2003]

It's pretty difficult to dismiss Haas as an 'sleazy, murky old guy' or 'The Bad Director' in his exile days (read US, later). He's trying hard and the pictures do have some bright moments, when you feel like as if it was a serious drama, or when you laugh hard. The problem is -- for some people -- that you get both in one package and that you might laugh at places where it wasn't intended. But I enjoyed this picture -- and I am not saying this only because of my hurt national pride or something.

The emotions are real with an untypical ending of this calibur

[jordondave-28085 · 7/10 · 7 January 2024]

(1951) Pickup DRAMA

Adapted from the novel "Watchman 47" by Josef Kopta produced, written, directed and starring Hugo Haas. He plays somewhat overweight and older train track maintenance man, Jan "Hunky" Horak. His workplace also happens to be his place of residence as well as he lets in a familiar friend nickname the "Professor" (Howland Chamberlain) to serve himself some coffee. The Professor then informs Hunky that puppies are for sale at the state fair, after learning Hunky has just lost his dog. A new employee, Steve Kowalski (Allan Nixon) then shows up to take his place for awhile, while Husky visits the county fair to possibly fetch himself a new puppy. While there, we find out Husky is tight with his money, arguing over the price with the person selling it to him, and it is not long before he is taken in by a young gold digger, Betty (Beverly Michaels) after seeing her riding on a carousal with her best friend. Betty assumes he has money despite him not her type and she bets her friend, she can get Hunky to pay for her meal. It was not long before Hunky pays for everything. By the time Hunky drives her to his place of residence, while he goes out to get something for the coffee, she then takes the opportunity to snoop around and take a look at his bank account. By the time she is driven back into town with Steve, she then finds out her and her friend are being evicted with three month back rent owing. The next scene then showcases both older Husky and young gold digger, Betty married, sleeping in separate beds with Husky attempting to show Betty what he does for a living. It was at this point is when Husky loses his hearing. As the doctor could not figure out how to regain his hearing back, it was as soon as he was heading back to town and was almost hit by another vehicle is when his hearing came back. The intended crime is when Betty professes Husky her actual reason why she was with him in the first place, and tries to manipulate Steve involve into murder.

What I liked about "Pickup" is the fact that just when you think something terrible was going to happen, which would have made the entire experience routine and expected- it doesn't. Making the entire theatrical experience much more humanly easy to identify.

really good premise

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 7 January 2024]

Jan "Hunky" Horak (Hugo Haas) is a lonely railroad dispatcher who lives in a remote post. He is paired with much younger co-worker Steve (Allan Nixon). Local flirt Betty (Beverly Michaels) tries to con a free lunch from him, but he's not interested initially. She finds his bank balance with $7300. She performs her magic on him and marries him. She is also starting something else with Steve. Out of the blue, he loses his hearing. After getting hit by a car, his hearing returns and he is shocked by what he hears at home.

This has a really good premise. If this movie has more daring, it would keep the affair a secret and turn the sound off during the section with Jan losing his hearing. I would also keep him from talking after going deaf. Deaf people have trouble speaking normally. Jan cannot speak with his normal voice. After awhile, it becomes unlikely that anybody wouldn't notice the flirtations and the illicit couple cannot still believe in his deafness.

No dice for wicked young lady with two men

[clanciai · 9/10 · 31 October 2022]

The set-up is the same as in "The postman always calls twice", but Beverly Michaels is no Lana Turner. She is much worse, much cheaper and much more vulgar but at the same enticingly prettier and more taunting. You will hate her but at the same time adore her splendid vulgarity. Hugo Haas is the poor old service man who is stupid enough to marry her without suspecting the consequences. Allan Nixon is the young man who becomes her second prey, but as he cannot fulfil her desires he is actually saved. The most interesting part is Hugo Haas' spells of losing his hearing, which forms a vital part of the drama. It is not a very remarkable film but very good of its kind, having had no ambitions for any masterpiece, but it should go along well together with "Detour".

NOIR W/A STREAK OF HONOR...?

[masonfisk · 7/10 · 9 February 2024]

A film noir from 1951 coming from the lurid hands of Hugo Haas who co-wrote, directed as well as gave himself the plum lead. Haas works at a train depot living on site at a small cozy shack w/his only companions a co-worker, played by Allan Nixon, & a learned hobo, Howland Chamberlain. When Haas' dog passes he decides to go into town & get a new pup where a carnival is in full swing. Meanwhile a femme fatale on the make, played by Beverly Michaels, crosses paths w/Haas where she plies her feminine wiles which he is more than receptive to. When Michaels & her best bud are kicked out from their apartment (since they owe back rent), Michaels makes up her mind to marry Haas, which she does, hoping to ride the rails (sorry!) into an easy life. An opportunity arises however when Haas loses his hearing (something his doctor feels is psycho-somatic) so Michaels, who has been hooking up w/Nixon, concocts a plan to off Haas to collect on a promised pension which doesn't go as smoothly as they want when Haas' hearing comes back & he's on to them. Taking many pages from James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice Haas has wisely inverted the tale to focus on the patsy rather than the players who prey on him (seen in the original 1946 version as well as the remake from 1981) w/Haas putting out something that could've been more salacious, since his output was generally B movie drive-in fare made on the cheap, but ends up being more honorable then one is led to believe.

A Hugo Hass Masterpiece

[kapelusznik18 · 8/10 · 15 March 2014]

***SPOILERS*** 50 year old railroad train dispatcher Jan "Hunky" Horak, Hugo Hass, had just lost his beloved dog "Nippy" who was tragically killed in a hit & run accident outside his house. With the help of his hobo friend "The Professor", Howland Chamberlain, Jan goes into town looking to buy a puppy and runs into sexy and leggy Betty, Beverly Michaels, who's on the balls of her a** looking to get some money to pay her back rent before she's thrown, together with her room--mate Irma(Jo-Carroll Dannison), out on the street. Taking advantage of the old guys loneliness and depression over the death of his dog "Nippy" Betty gets Jan to not only give her a a roof over her head three meals a day and a place to sleep but marries her in, what seemed like a few minutes, record time.

Complications soon develop when Jan gets an assistant at the train station the good looking and Marlon Brando like, with a leather jacket & white T-shirt, Steve Kowalski, Allan Nixon, who soon hits on to Betty and begins a romantic affair with her. Jan who at first doesn't notice what's going on between Steve & Betty suddenly and unexpectedly loses his hearing that has both Steve & Betty's affair, at least the speaking part of it, get even more outrageous. That by them both telling each other how they love each other and what a jerk Jan is in front of him without him knowing what their talking about! There's also the fact that Betty knowing that her husband Jan has a fat bank account,$7,300.00, and plans to get her hands on it by causing him to have a fatal accident on the railroad track.

***SPOILERS*** What unexpectedly does later happen is that Jan , after falling and hitting his head on the street, does get his hearing back but keeps it secret from both Steve & Betty thus finding out what the two have planned for him. It's in fact Steve who chickens out in the planned "accident" Betty is setting her husband Jan up for. This after Jan reveals that he in fact can hear which leads to a wild attack by Steve on Betty who, no surprise to us watching the movie, planned to leave him with Jan's money after he got knocked off. Jan now in full control of his life & destiny kicks the scheming and unfaithful Betty out of his house with Steve now sorry that he had anything to do with her back to both normal and his job as an assistant train dispatcher. In the end Jan gets rewarded for all the trouble & suffering he went through. That's by the "The Professor" who was keen to all that was happening, that's why he's called the "The Professor", brings Jan a new and cuddly puppy to make up for all he went through with the people, Steve & Betty, he dealt with in the movie.

He would have been better off with the puppy.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 12 June 2018]

She's opportunistic, bad tempered, trampy and possibly murderous. She's Beverly Michaels, whose tough girl image started off when she got into a fist fight with Van Heflin in the 1949 MGM melodrama "East Side, West Side", and as one of the tallest women in Hollywood in the 1950's after Hope Emerson, she's a force to be reckoned with. This story centers on Hugo Haas, a small town whistle stop train maintenance person who, as a widower of two years, longs to find someone to marry but makes the wrong choice when he meets Michaels in a greasy spoon and begins to spend time with her. After she's kicked out of her apartment for not only not paying rent but selling items which belonged to the landlady, Michaels makes a beeline for Haas, and while we don't get to see the events which lead up to a proposal, they are soon married, as evidenced by the presence of a wedding cake on a messy table in Haas's humble cabin right after the ceremony. She's grumbling from the start, and when a young acquaintance (Allan Nixon) of Haas's stops by, it's apparent that she's in the mood to cheat on her new hubby, and maybe even arrange for his accidental death, falling over a cliff near the whistle stop he takes care of.

A mesmerizing and fun piece of pulp trash, "Pickup" makes no bones about the fact from the moment you see her that Michaels is no good. She's one of those entitled broads that thinks that she can use her womanly wiles to get a man, even if its one she personally abhors. At certain times, there are hints that deep down, she cares for him in a fatherly like way, but there's obviously no love there. When he suddenly loses his hearing after having some sort of recurring seizure, Michaels realizes that she's trapped in a loveless marriage with a sick old man, and decides to manipulate Nixon into doing her bidding to get rid of him. But a sudden return of his hearing causes Haas to learn the truth about his wife, and he brilliantly leads her and Nixon on in believing that he's still deaf, even in one scene where she insults him with laughter directly to his face, and he laughs back, even though he knows exactly what she's saying. There are some great photographic effects when Haas has his seizures and when he learns the truth about what is going on. As a viewer of their unfixable situation, the audience gets to see through Haas's point of view the torment he faces, and it's absolutely riveting,

Even so, there's an element of unbelievability that Haas could be so naive as to not see through Michaels' machinations, especially with old pal Howard Chamberlain looking in and giving his own warnings, and simply the obnoxious way that Michaels acts when she can't get her own way. But the performances of Haas and Michaels are amazing, especially Haas who brilliantly acts simply by staring off into space and revealing through his eyes how let down he feels, especially realizing what a complete fool he is. Chamberlain, too, is outstanding, reminding me of an older John Qualen. This is a great example of how a simple man can be pulled in over his head, like Edward G. Robinson in "The Woman in the Window" and the cuckholded husbands of Barbara Stanwyck and Lana Turner in both "Double Indemnity" and "The Postman Always Rings Twice". Also standing out in a small role as Michaels' friend is Jo-Carroll Dennison. It's nice to read that "bad girl" Michaels had a happy and normal life after leaving the movies, unlike a similar 1950's vixen, Barbara Payton, whom I often mistook for Michaels, and vice versa. I won't make that mistake again.

H.Haas Stars-Directs & Beverly Michaels "Star-Turn...Categorically...Definitive B-Noir

[LeonLouisRicci · 8/10 · 23 October 2022]

Writer-Actor-Director Hugo Haas, Another Euro-Emigre that Found Opportunities in "The Land of the Free", and with Hard-Work and Talented Determination Discovered a Niche in 30's Hollywood.

As a Frequent Supporting-Comedian in Many Movies.

But Haas, had an Innate Creative Force to do More with HIs Gifts.

He Started a Long Up-Hill Climb in the "Hollywood System", to Make Films of His Own Choosing.

It Could be Analogized, and has, that His "Battle" in the Brutal Cut-Throat, Meat-Grinding "War" with the Studio-System to Get Successfully and Artistically Respected Film to the Public.

Was Similar, to 2 other Iconic Film-Makers, From the Bottom-to-the-Top.

Edward D. Wood Jr......and......Orson Welles

In Fact, Before and After HIs Struggles, He was Often Put-Down and Criticized as "The "Foreign Ed Wood".

Dismissed by Almost Everyone as a "Poverty Row" Dispenser of Low-Brow, Lurid, and Tasteless Exploitation. A Smut-Peddler.

The Cleansing of Time, as More Accurate "Truths" Surface, with Hind-Sight and Objectivity. Hass has Gained a Cult-Following for His Trashy but "Bottom-Life", Entertaining Movies.

"Pickup" is a Prime Example of What Hugo Hass was able to Accomplish. It Falls, Firmly and Solidly in the Film-Noir Lexicon. No Easy Feat.

Despite the Film-Noir Genre, Sometimes being an Open-Door Pretension for Anyone Wanting to Add a Phony "Prestige", or just to Make-Money off the Movie Marketing Magnet ("Film-Noir").

The Pushy Link and Inclusion into the Unique and Glorious Genre.

It's Become so Bad that Almost any Black & White Movie Made in the 40's and 50's, that isn't a Comedy or a Musical, has the Label "Brazened" Next to the Title.

This is the "Raw-Deal", in the B-Sub-Category, with the Only Beat that is Slightly Non-Pure-Noir is the Last 1 Minute of Happiness by way of "Man's Best Friend"

Hugo Haas had "Help" with Regards to "Pickup" and its New Respect and Discovery as a "Hidden-Gem" within Film-Noir Circles, and its Massive Movie Consuming Fan-Base.

That would be the 5'9", Blonde Bombshell with ATTITUDE, Beverly Michaels.

A "Fellow Traveler", with Haas, in the World of B-Movie-Making. That's where She Lurked and Made Her "Mark".

So it was Like a Synchronicity. Each Using Their "Gifts" to Infuse this No-Budget, Nasty Little Film into the Consciousness of Connoisseurs of Off-Beat-Bottom-of-the- Bill, Drive-In, Grind-House "Respectability".

She, along with the Writer-Director Haas, who also Stars with Beverly and Bring Their Characters to the Screen with Undeniable Attraction.

Playing the Stock Noir Antagonist-Protagonist with a Classic Fit into this Tawdry Tale of Life on the Dark-Fringes.

Beverly Michaels was Not a Gifted Actress, but She Made Up for it with Her Model Good-Looks,Unbridled Sex-Appeal and an Unstoppable Femme-Fatale Formula.

That of a Dominating Dame, Unscrupulous, and Willing to Stop at Nothing, Including Sex-for Favors and Manipulation, and, Yes, even Murder.

This is a Must-See for Anyone with the Slightest Interest in Low-Budget Movies, Film-Noir, or Pop-Culture and its Primitive-Side.

Note...Since its spontaneous and simply unpredictable explosion of a new-art-form in the early to mid-40's, film-noir has had a difficult history in terms of "Definitive" Definitions and just what is and what is NOT..."Film-Noir". If you are at all interested in diving into the "Rabbit-Hole" of this fascinating film genre...go without hesitation to the works of "Eddie Muller" who is so informative and active in studying Film-Noir that fans have Crowned Eddie Muller..."The Czar of Noir"...just do a search and the "Rabbit Hole" will open like a "Black puddle forming at your feet, and you can just like "Marlowe" after being drugged... "Dive right In".

Hapless Hugo Haas

[nickenchuggets · 8/10 · 11 January 2024]

Long ago, I watched and wrote about a little known noir movie called Wicked Woman, which was quite an undertaking since there doesn't really seem to be much about it on the internet. The film features a severely underrated actress playing the part of someone who takes advantage of a guy she considers a loser while she simultaneously plots fleeing to Mexico with her boyfriend. Pickup is remarkably similar both in plot and style to that film, and we have the same girl playing the antagonist (but a lot more aggressively this time). The story follows Jan Horak (Hugo Haas), an Eastern European immigrant to the US who acts as a dispatcher for a railroad station by himself. The station is in the middle of nowhere and is miles outside the nearest town. Horak takes a day off and goes to a carnival, where he encounters a girl named Betty (Beverly Michaels) on a merry go round with her friend. Betty sees a vulnerability in Horak and decides to sit next to him as he eats at a bar. By the time Betty gets home, she finds out her landlord is throwing her out since she doesn't want to pay rent. Betty takes advantage of Horak and marries him, or as she later puts it, marries his bank account. One day while walking around the railroad tracks with Betty, Horak suddenly goes deaf for seemingly no reason. A guy named Steve (Allan Nixon), who worked as the dispatcher during Horak's absence, replaces him. Although Horak's disability means he gets to retire immediately, the paperwork takes weeks to finish, so Steve has no choice but to live in a shed adjacent to Horak and Betty's house. Meanwhile, Betty is still nasty to her husband despite the fact that he can't hear. One of Horak's friends drives him into town one afternoon, and after being dropped off, a car honks at him to get out of the way. Being unable to hear a thing, Horak is hit and knocked to the ground by the car, but upon getting back up, finds he can miraculously hear again. He makes his way back home and finds out Betty plans to get him killed with Steve's help somehow, then take all his money and run off with him. While Horak is no doubt afraid, he has an important trump card: Steve and Betty don't know he's no longer deaf. Meanwhile, Betty mocks Horak to his face and says she will not stay around to be his caretaker after receiving his pension. Horak understands every word but pretends he can't hear. Later on, Betty becomes frustrated upon discovering she can't divorce Horak, and wants him to move all his money into an account owned between the two of them. The bank says she can't do that. As a last resort to get his money, Betty bruises herself and then runs outside while her husband is asleep. She feigns terror and tells Steve that Horak beat her, and she wants Steve to murder Horak by shoving him off a cliff near a section of the railroad she walked by with him. As long as nobody sees him, it will be considered an accident. The next day, Betty and Steve are lazing around until Horak shows up and says he wants Steve to accompany him to the railroad tracks. Upon arriving, Horak stands right at the edge of the cliff but glances at Steve every few seconds, seeming to know what he wants to do. Betty waits in the house for Steve to come back, but finds to her disgust that he brought Horak back with him. Steve says he couldn't muster up the nerve to be a murderer, and Betty decides she's had enough of him. As she tries to leave, Steve attempts to choke her to death. Horak hears what's going on and pulls Steve off of Betty, allowing her to escape. They are both shocked that he was able to hear this entire time, but Steve had his suspicions. This is quite a good movie. Beverly plays one of the most savage female roles in any movie, as she has no qualms about killing her husband and leaving with his money with someone else. She's too cowardly to do it herself. Haas' performance as Horak is guaranteed to make you pity him, and not only because he is mistreated badly by his wife. He has to somehow put a stop to a plot involving his murder before Steve and Betty find out he can hear. Speaking of Haas, this movie in general reminds me of another film he did (which I also liked) called Hit and Run, in which another character played by Haas needs to lie in order to foil an attempted murder plot set up by a girl and her boyfriend. The girl in question is Cleo Moore, who did not have many movies to her name (Hit and Run was the last) but she did a number of them for Haas. Overall, I thought Pickup was an easy to understand movie and should disprove any notion that Haas could only produce trash. It shows how bad personalities can make even the most attractive human beings ugly.