Dwight Taylor (1903–1986)

Boy meets girl, girl mistakes boy for her friend's husband.

Only one of the dance numbers is as jaw-droppingly joy-inducing as the stuff in Swing Time, but it's pretty much all delightful. Fred and Ginger are charming, and the supporting cast performs miracles by making great comedy out of a script that might have been something you just sit through while waiting for the next dance number.

Concept: D
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: C
Acting: show more A
Music: B

Enjoyment: A

GPA: 2.7/4

(Feb. 2013) show less

Samuel Fuller keeps the dialogue focussed and the pace deft before quite an exciting ending. It does play a little to cold war politics and paranoia, but it's still a superior cat and mouse thriller well worth a watch, one of those films where police and underworld cooperate (temporarily) to fight a greater evil. In a film such as "M" (1931, Fritz Lang) the greater evil is a pedophile. In the American version of "Pick up on South Street" the greater evil is (entirely in 50s style) communism. show more In France (were the Communist party was much more accepted as a political ideology) the film was released under the title "Le port de la drogue". With minimal changes the greater evil was changed in drugstrade. The movie , rather than using it to scale the small story into something wider, does abuse its MacGuffin for political purposes. It lacks relatable characters as well as a fine climax after plenty of potential for something sophisticated knock it down a notch. It's still a good film that's worth watching. show less