| 52 Pick-Up | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
|
| Directed by | John Frankenheimer |
| Produced by | Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan |
| Written by | Elmore Leonard (novel) Elmore Leonard and John Steppling (screenplay) |
| Starring | Roy Scheider Ann-Margret John Glover Vanity Kelly Preston |
| Music by | Gary Chang |
| Cinematography | Jost Vacano and Stephen Ramsey |
| Editing by | Robert F. Shugrue |
| Distributed by | Cannon Group |
| Release date(s) | November 7, 1986 |
| Running time | 110 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $5,186,646[1] |
52 Pick-Up is a 1986 crime thriller film directed by John Frankenheimer. The film stars Roy Scheider and Ann-Margret and is based on Elmore Leonard's novel of the same name.
Contents |
Harry Mitchell is a successful industrialist living in the suburbs of Los Angeles whose wife is running for city council while he is having an affair. Harry is confronted by three blackmailers demanding $105,000 for a videotape of him and his mistress, Cini.
Because of his wife Barbara's political aspirations, he can't go to the police. Harry's lawyer advises him that paying the blackmailers won't likely make them go away, so he refuses to pay. The criminals up the ante by murdering Cini and framing Harry for the murder, demanding $105,000 a year for the rest of his life to keep the evidence they have on him under wraps.
Harry opens his financial records to one of them with a background in accounting, Alan Raimy. Seeing that their mark owes money to the government and cannot afford the $105,000, Raimy agrees to accept Harry's counter offer of $52,000, at least as a first payment. Harry then turns the blackmailers against one another, putting his wife's life in grave danger in the process.
The film is regarded as reasonably close to Elmore Leonard's original novel, except that it is set in Los Angeles instead of Detroit. Also, in the novel the Harry Mitchell character is having problems with the labor force at his business in addition to the main blackmail/kidnap plot.
It was characterized in the year of its release by The New York Times film critic Janet Maslin as being "...fast-paced, lurid, exploitative and loaded with malevolent energy. John Frankenheimer, who directed, hasn't done anything this darkly entertaining since 'Black Sunday.'"[2]
|
||||||||||||||||||||