52 Pick-Up: The Best 80s Movie You Never Saw?
In the history of Cannon Pictures, which was already strange to begin with, one of the oddest pieces of trivia has to be that they once filmed not one but two adaptations of Elmore Leonard’s novel 52 Pick-Up. It probably goes to show you just how wild things got in the heady days of Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, with them cranking out so many movies that they’d adapt the same novel twice. Yet, the second adaptation of the novel ranks as one of the best movies they ever produced, and one of their few films to have ever really undergone a critical reevaluation in recent years, to the point that it’s considered such a classic thriller you can even sometimes catch it screening on the Criterion Channel. Yet, 52 Pick-Up remains a criminally underseen piece of eighties sleaze, with it maybe the only film of the decade that has a bad guy almost as loathsome as Wings Hauser’s Ramrod the Pimp in the JoBlo-approved Vice Squad.
From Novel to Misfire: The Ambassador
52 Pick-Up was written in 1974 by the great Elmore Leonard. It’s the story of a Detroit factory boss who’s blackmailed by a trio of smut peddlers, who threaten to reveal an affair of his to his wife. Rather than pay their blackmail, he confesses, so as a result they murder his stripper girlfriend and threaten to frame him unless he pays up. The book was bought by Cannon, which used the basic premise of a videotaped affair and blackmail for a movie they had planned called The Ambassador. The finished film, while credited as being based on 52 Pick-Up, has very little to do with the book. The film revolves around the U.S. ambassador to Israel being terrorized by the PLO, who have manipulated his wife into an affair and threaten to discredit him as he tries to negotiate peace in the Middle East. The movie starred Robert Mitchum as the Ambassador, Ellen Burstyn as his unfaithful wife and, in his last film role before he died of AIDS, Rock Hudson as the Ambassador’s loyal bodyguard. The movie was a big flop and has become largely obscure, although it’s an interesting curio with a strong performance by Hudson and an intriguing historical backdrop, having been shot on location in Israel, but truth be told it doesn’t have a ton to do with Leonard’s novel beyond the blackmail hook.
Frankenheimer’s Comeback Attempt
Perhaps it was for this reason that Golan/Globus were open to the idea when director John Frankenheimer approached them with the idea of doing a more faithful version of 52 Pick-Up. At the time, Cannon was at a crossroads. They’d had a lot of early success with a slew of action programmers starring folks like Chuck Norris, Charles Bronson, and – of course – ninjas, but Menahem Golan in particular was hungry for mainstream success. They wanted to be taken seriously as artists, and as such they greenlit a whole slew of wildly uncommercial fare, such as John Cassavetes’ final film, Love Streams. Cannon was seen as a place where people whose careers had cooled could get things made, which would apply to Frankenheimer. Throughout the sixties, he was one of the biggest directors in Hollywood, having directed Birdman of Alcatraz, Seven Days in May, The Manchurian Candidate, The Train, Seconds and Grand Prix. His track record in the seventies was more mixed, but he still made an underrated sequel to The French Connection, and the large-scale thriller Black Sunday. But, he’s had a few major flops, notably the horror movie Prophecy and the Japan-set action movie The Challenge, which is well loved here at Loving the 80s. He’d also directed the abysmal thriller The Holcroft Covenant, which was a huge flop, so Hollywood was no longer banging down his door, but he was still a respected name, and Golan and Globus knew that if they got him, they could get a fairly prestigious cast.
Cast, Setting, and Sleaze
Indeed, they were able to sign Roy Scheider to play the lead role, in this case a Los Angeles construction magnate whose wife, played by Ann-Margret, is running for city councilwoman. Frankenheimer was forced to change the location from Detroit to Los Angeles, but this presented an opportunity, as he was able to set his thriller deeply in the rather seedy, lower-market side of the porn business. In the film, three men blackmail Scheider’s Harry Mitchell with videotape of him having sex with a gorgeous young stripper, played by the heartbreakingly beautiful Kelly Preston. When he refuses to pay, the three blackmailers murder her in a grotesque snuff film, threatening to frame Harry as the culprit.
Scheider & Ann-Margret: A Fractured Marriage
Scheider, at the time, was in the middle of a solid run at the box office. While Jaws had made him iconic in 1975, he’d had several other major successes in the following decade, including an Oscar-nominated turn in All That Jazz, as well as playing the lead in the smash hit Blue Thunder, and also leading 2010, which, while not a giant hit, was still a success. He was seen as bankable in action-style movies. Ann-Margret, who would play his wife, was trying to reinvent herself after being one of the biggest sex symbols of the sixties. Now in her forties, she was still gorgeous, but had begun to receive acclaim for her acting – more so than she ever got in her heyday, and she is very believable as Harry’s politician wife. She and Scheider make a good pair. You believe them as a couple that have simply grown apart over the years, but still care about each other, and put up a united front when attacked, even if Harry’s made a huge mistake that puts them both in jeopardy.
A Trio of Truly Repugnant Villains
Yet, the movie is utterly stolen by the three blackmailers, a truly repugnant gang if ever there was one. There’s the great Clarence Williams III as Bobby Shy, the group’s psychotic muscle, with the role helping him break free from the typecasting that followed him around after his famous starring role on The Mod Squad. He’d frequently work with Frankenheimer again and again, and would go on to become a much in-demand character actor, appearing in everything from Deep Cover to American Gangster to Half Baked. Robert Trebor plays Leo Franks, the hapless proprietor of the peep show Preston’s character works at – along with her friend Doreen, played by Vanity of the Prince-associated band Vanity 6.
John Glover Steals the Show
Yet, the film is absolutely stolen by John Glover as the demented Alan Raimy, who’s up there with Wings Hauser’s Ramrod as one of the most evil villains of the decade. He looks and talks like a yuppie, but he has a heart of stone, with a sordid sadistic streak that runs a mile deep. One look at him and you cannot wait for Scheider to finally waste him, which he does in truly satisfying fashion. Glover, who often played silver-tongued yuppies, is at his best in this movie, giving a truly outstanding performance.
Porn World Realism
With much of the movie set in the porn world, Frankenheimer was able to cast some real-life porn stars, with one party sequence featuring cameos from the biggest porn stars of the time, including Amber Lynn, Ron Jeremy, Randy West and more.
Rough Edges That Work
As a movie, it has been noted that 52 Pick-Up is a bit of a more threadbare production than other Frankenheimer movies, with it having a grimy visual style, an unimpressive sound mix (Cannon was notorious for using the cheap UltraStereo alternative to Dolby) and a cheesy synth score by Gary Chang. Yet, rather than be a detriment, it actually works in the film’s favor as it feels like a legitimately sleazy grindhouse-style movie, even if it was a class-A production for Cannon.
Box Office Flop, Cult Classic Legacy
Sadly, 52 Pick-Up landed with a thud in theaters. Some critics liked it, with many praising Glover and Williams, but others found it grotesquely violent against women, which is fair, as the snuff film and a sequence where Williams VERY REALISTICALLY smothers Vanity with a pillow are hard to watch. Yet, that’s probably what also makes 52 Pick-Up feel authentic, as the world it’s depicting treats women as commodities, with Ann-Margret having to suffer horrible abuse in the film’s climax from the misogynist villain. It doesn’t celebrate this behaviour, but it’s honest about what a cruel world it is. The movie only grossed $5.2 million at the box office, but became a hit on video and is now a cult movie among crime film enthusiasts. Sadly, it marked the end of Scheider’s run as a viable leading man, with him never again headlining a hit movie. He eventually turned to TV, where he starred in the short-lived SeaQuest DSV, before ending his career in mostly B-movies prior to his passing. Frankenheimer would also struggle to find his footing but made an unexpected comeback in the late nineties with the Robert De Niro-led Ronin, which put him back on the map. Sadly, so many people associated with 52 Pick-Up are no longer with us – with Roy Scheider, Clarence Williams III, Robert Trebor, Kelly Preston, Vanity and John Frankenheimer all having passed away. If you haven’t seen this one and don’t mind a sleazy, tough watch – give it a try.
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