VICTOR MATURE AND TREVOR HOWARD BATTLE IN 'PICKUP ALLEY'

Poster art for Pickup Alley Year: 1957 Rating: ****

Sometimes those late 1950's anti-drug, jazz-soaked neo noirs feature shaky method actors mimicking shaky legend James Dean, and for a reason... they're coming off heroin... and preachy melodrama ensues. But this British import starring American actor Victor Mature only begins that way... 

What everything narrows down to is Mature, a U.S. drug enforcement agent, going after classy drug-smuggling kingpin Trevor Howard, himself after an eventual load of heroin in a port among various countries, from England to Greece to France, yet this was all filmed in Italy while making terrific use of their iconic Roman ruins...

Trevor Howard in PICKUP ALLEY

Each place where the trailing Mature (randomly aided by fast-talking undercover agent Bonar Colleano) ends up has terrific fist-fights and chase sequences manned skillfully by British director John Gilling... and Alec Mango plays Howard's scar-faced thug, yet only thinks he's tougher than tough-as-nails Anita Ekberg, who Mature is actually following since she's following Howard...

And since the bombshell (wearing way too much unnecessary makeup) doesn't provide the femme fatale role as advertised, PICKUP ALLEY is really Mature vs Howard, and one of them is desperate, cuts corners and makes shady deals... while the villain takes his sweet old time. 

Victor Mature with an unnamed beauty in PICKUP ALLEY

Victor Mature with an unnamed beauty in PICKUP ALLEY

Dorothy Alison and The Party's Over actor Maurice Browning

Lionel Murton and Victor Mature in PICKUP ALLEY

Anita Ekberg and Alec Mango in PICKUP ALLEY

Victor Mature in PICKUP ALLEY

Al Mulock (The Good, Bad, Ugly) in PICKUP ALLEY

Al Mulock (The Good, Bad, Ugly) in PICKUP ALLEY

Curse of the Demon actor Brian Wilde in PICKUP ALLEY

Brian Wilde in PICKUP ALLEY with Victor Mature and Trevor Howard

Bonar Colleano and Victor Mature in PICKUP ALLEY

Trevor Howard in PICKUP ALLEY

Bonar Colleano and Victor Mature in PICKUP ALLEY

Credits for PICKUP ALLEY

Credits for PICKUP ALLEY