52 Pickup

Name: 52 Pickup
Director: John Frankenheimer
Released: 1986

The Run Down.

Harry Mitchell, an L.A. manufacturer with a fancy car, a nice house, and a wife running for city council, has his life overturned when three blackmailers appear with a video tape of Harry and his mistress. They want $100,000. To protect his wife's political ambitions, Harry won't go to the police; instead, he leads them on and then doesn't pay. They up their demands, so he goes on the offensive, tracking them down and trying to turn one against the other. Will Harry pay up or can he find some other solution? (IMDB)

Release Year: 1986

Source: Novel and Screenplay ( Fifty-Two Pickup)

Director: John Frankenheimer

Written by: Elmore Leonard, John Steppling

Production: Cannon Group

Starring: Roy Scheider, Ann-Margret

Runtime: 110 Minutes

Heroes are great, but a movie is only as good as its villain. John Frankenheimer's "52 Pick-Up" provides us with the best, most reprehensible villain of the year and uses his vile charm as the starting point for a surprisingly good film.

— Roger Ebert

The Book: Fifty-Two Pickup

Detroit businessman Harry Mitchell had had only one affair in his twenty-two years of happy matrimony. Unfortunately someone caught his indiscretion on film and now wants Harry to fork over one-hundred grand to keep his infidelity a secret. And if Harry doesn't pay up, the blackmailer and his associates plan to press a lot harder—up to and including homicide, if necessary. But the psychos picked the wrong pigeon for their murderous scam. Because Harry Mitchell doesn't get mad . . . he gets even.

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