52 Pick-Up (1986) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

52 Pick-Up is a twisting, sleazy crime story. It was made in the 80s, but it's an 80s film only by averaging it out. Thematically, it's typical of a 90s film made from an Elmore Leonard story, like Get Shorty or Jackie Brown, filled with corrupted protagonists and colorful villains.  Stylistically, however, it's an old-fashioned John Frankenheimer production in the manner of early 60s Hollywood.

The basic storyline of 52 Pick-Up is good. It is complicated enough to be intriguing, but not too complicated to be comprehensible. Three baddies from the sex trade arrange a sexual relationship between a successful businessman (Roy Scheider) and a beautiful young hooker (Kelly Preston), then secretly tape all their sexual activities. Being both psychotic and in the adult film industry, they edit the footage into a little story and show their film masterpiece to Scheider, demanding substantial blackmail in return for the tape. Scheider refuses to pay, electing instead to tell his wife (Ann-Margret) about the affair, thus negating the value of the revelation.

Hoo-boy, the baddies are really not happy with Scheider's decision, so they up the ante with a bigger blackmail scam. They proceed to break into Scheider's house and steal some clothes and a gun. They then use Scheider's gun to kill the hooker who has been pretending to be Scheider's mistress, and they record the entire frame-up on film so they can show it to Scheider. ("I used two cameras. I was quite proud of that film.") This time they significantly increase the retail price of the tape, presumably to cover their lavish production values and because they can't exactly put it on the market at Sundance.

At that point, Scheider knows that he is screwed.

• He can't go to the police for two reasons (1) because he thinks he'd be implicating himself in the murder, and (2) because his wife is running for assistant D.A., and it would destroy her career.

• He can't go on a Charles Bronson spree of violent revenge because he's not a tough guy. He's a suburban husband battling against violent lowlifes.

• His only possible solution, therefore, is to out-smart the baddies and turn them against one another.

John Frankenheimer was once considered an A-list director, but that was twenty years before he made this film. That point may be best illustrated by the dates attached to the four Frankenheimer films which are rated the highest at IMDB.

1. (8.39) - The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
2. (7.76) - Seven Days in May (1964)
3. (7.57) - Birdman of Alcatraz (1962)
4. (7.56) - The Train (1964)

Frankenheimer had some major failures toward the end of his career, when he was in his 70s and still at it. We're talking real bad - late night monologue material like Reindeer Games and The Island of Doctor Moreau.

Compared to Frankenheimer's best and worst work, 52 Pick-Up is about in the middle of the road both in terms of chronology and quality.

To his credit, Frankenheimer, who was 56 when he made this film, did a pretty good job of running with the young guys and modernizing his approach. The villain is suitably creepy and over-the-top in the modern fashion, and some of the violent acts are shown explicitly. Mr. Psycho makes Scheider (and us) watch his mistress being snuffed on film, for example, accompanied by a tawdry narration. Of course, one cannot get into the Psycho Bad Guy Hall of Fame merely by snuffing a guy's mistress and making him appear to be the killer. Mr Psycho also shot Scheider's wife full of heroin and raped her, pretty much just for his own amusement. The director showed the wife being shot full of horse, but cut away when the bad guy removed his shirt. I suppose a truly modern film would have shown the rape, but Frankenheimer backed off in that case, perhaps in deference to the dignity of Ann-Margret.

All in all, 52 Pick-Up has a good story put together by a director who was once considered one of Hollywood's major players. It has a deliciously creepy baddie, over-the-top dialogue, and lots of nudity. It even features a cameo by film legend Ronald J. Hyatt, or as he is more commonly known, Ron Jeremy. The editing and music sometimes seem old-fashioned for a film from the mid 80s, but it's not a bad genre flick. Not bad at all.