10.1 Samuel Fuller
10.1 Samuel Fuller
Samuel Fuller
This singularly audacious B-movie visionary made purposefully crude, elegantly stripped-down films that laid bare the dark side of American culture.
“It’s been said that if you don’t like the Rolling Stones, then you just don’t like rock and roll. By the same token, I think that if you don’t like the films of Sam Fuller, then you just don’t like cinema. Or at least you don’t understand it.”(2) This comment from Martin Scorsese may seem exaggerated, perhaps even touched by a degree of film snobbery. But in a way, he’s on to something. It’s not that all the films of Samuel Fuller are among the greatest in the history of the cinema, nor do they necessarily best display the form’s specific traits or techniques. Yet there is something about his work that could never be as effectively realized in any other medium. To watch one of his movies is to experience what movies can do best: their emotive potential, their visual dynamism, their narrative capacities. That is perhaps what Scorsese is getting at, for it would indeed be difficult for someone who doesn’t like movies to enjoy the cinema of Samuel Fuller. To adequately appreciate his films, it helps to understand film.
It also helps to understand the man himself. Rarely has a director left such an indelible, profoundly personal stamp on so many of their films. As Scorsese puts it, though Fuller’s films are “blunt, pulpy, occasionally crude, lacking any sense of delicacy or subtlety,” those are not shortcomings. “They’re simply reflections of his temperament, his journalistic training, and his sense of urgency.”(3)
When Fuller was 11, his family moved to New York City where he became almost instantly enamoured with the newspaper business. By age 12, young Sammy was assigned the role of copyboy for the New York Journal. By 17, he graduated to full-fledged crime reporter with the New York Evening Graphic, a tabloid specialising in “creative exaggeration.”(4) Here, he got down to the nitty-gritty of street life. He honed his journalistic skills and assembled a wealth of future material. Fuller then set off in search of stories across America, delving into the social and political upheaval of the day. He also entered the world of fiction, knocking out his first novel at age 22. Seeking a fictionalized version of one of his newspaper stories, MGM approached Fuller about writing for them in 1931. He turned down that offer, but in 1937, Fuller began his screenwriting career. A few years later, spurred on by the events at Pearl Harbor, a 29-year-old Fuller enlisted for service in World War II. As a rifleman in the U.S. 1st Infantry Division — the Big Red One — he saw action from Africa to Omaha Beach to Czechoslovakia. Ultimately, he was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart.
Back in Hollywood, low-budget producer Robert Lippert sought out Fuller and the two teamed up for the first three films of Fuller’s directorial career. Lippert wanted a film about an assassin, and Fuller proposed a picture about Cassius killing Caesar, not what Lippert had in mind. Instead, Fuller made the Western, I Shot Jesse James (1949), about the guilt-ridden torment haunting Robert Ford (John Ireland), the man who betrayed his legendary friend for a pardon.
Ford is the first in a long line of Fuller characters who do what they do, rightly or wrongly, as a matter of personal necessity and individual gain. They’re not especially bad people, they’re just people, they’re human, they have their reasons. Ford is scorned by Cynthy (Barbara Britton), his reason for action to begin with, and he is ostracized by the community. While Jesse (Reed Hadley) may be a criminal, there is still a larger code that transcends good and bad. It’s a matter of loyalty. And Ford broke this code. Rare for a Fuller character who acts according to his nature, even if it is socially damnable, Ford shows nearly instant remorse. He, unlike later Fuller protagonists, is not comfortable in the role of outcast.
I Shot Jesse James was a success, and for Fuller’s second feature, Lippert was looking for an adaptation. Fuller proposed a story based on an article he had written about James Addison Reavis, the man who attempted to swindle the United States in order to obtain ownership of the entire Arizona territory. The Baron of Arizona (1950) seems placed between the crime film and the Western, taking its narrative from the former and its primary setting from the latter. A not yet famous Vincent Price stars, but the big score was obtaining renowned cinematographer James Wong Howe for a fraction of his salary. Howe contributes a visual sheen to the film, but relatively infrequent are the powerfully impactful single images Fuller would be known for. There is also a lot to Reavis’ scheme, and subsequently, unusually for Fuller, there is more telling than showing at first, necessary to make sense of the intricacies of the plot.
Frequent Fuller themes, however, are present. Reavis’ is an extremely ambitious endeavour, costly, and extraordinarily time consuming, and for all of his faults, he has astonishing tenacity and fortitude. Pointing the way toward Fuller’s crime features, Reavis is a schemer of the highest order, but one who demands respect. While Griff (Hadley), an investigator with the Department of the Interior, is naturally his nemesis, he nevertheless appreciates Reavis’ skill and perseverance.
Fuller was a natural to take on a war film, so for his third and final feature with Lippert, and now credited as writer-producer-director, he made The Steel Helmet (1951), set during the Korean War, the first film about the war as it was still going on. Newcomer Gene Evans, himself a WW II veteran, is Zack, a prototypical Fuller hero: a seasoned professional, knowledgeable, and with a level of world-weary cynicism that helps him keep the war in perspective. Fuller’s war films are marked by authenticity, in terms of banter, props, set design, and characters. He incorporates many elements of his own tour, contributing to the verisimilitude of the picture with details and occurrences oftentimes overlooked in war films without experience at the helm. Fuller again has his characters display a respect for proficiency, even if it’s the enemy’s, and as would be his norm, his violence is quick and brutal and ugly. The production code would obviously limit graphic depictions of bloodshed, but one nevertheless gets an impressive sense of the disorientation and havoc that goes with a firefight.
For his first film set in contemporary times, Fuller imbues The Steel Helmet with a social resonance covering several aspects of early 1950s America, such as African American treatment at home and in war, and the US internment of Japanese Americans. Some of the film’s commentary (as well as Zack’s killing of a POW) earned Fuller considerable political scorn.
The Steel Helmet had a 10-day shoot and a scant $100,000 budget, but despite these constraints, Fuller crafts a realistic, comprehensive picture, with action, a good story, and relevance, all features that appealed to Twentieth Century-Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck. In Zanuck, Fuller found a kindred spirit, someone who appreciated a good yarn as much as he did. Based on the success of The Steel Helmet, Zanuck suggested a similar subject for Fuller’s first film at Fox, for which he now had a six-picture deal (with the option to do his own projects). With Fixed Bayonets (1951), Fuller is back in Korea, back with the infantry, and back with Evans, this time as the gruff Sgt. Rock. Though Evans manages to chew up every scene he’s in, the primary character is Cpl. Denno (Richard Basehart), a good soldier — brave, smart, obedient — but less than qualified to be a leader. He is afraid of responsibility and is loathe to kill. A key concern for Fixed Bayonets, and in turn one of Fuller’s strongest themes when it comes to war, is the difference between killing a man and killing the enemy.
The weary band of soldiers is not thrilled with their assignment, but, as always, they do what they have to do. They and Fuller recognize that duty isn’t always glamorous, but it is necessary. Fuller also brings forth the notion that rank isn’t always desired, and can be unsystematically designated, changing at a given moment, sometimes with a single bullet. Why one volunteers for service, and keeps coming back, is also a persistent question.
Fuller took advantage of his independent option and with $200,000 of his own money, he next directed Park Row (1952), a big, brash, bold love letter to journalism. Fuller treats the material with a prevailing reverence. The film is about more than a just a profession; it’s about an institution, an ideal, a history. Evans is Phineas Mitchell, editor of The Globe, one of several dueling newspapers in New York City. Mitchell has a profound admiration for those who came before him (Horace Greeley, Benjamin Franklin) as well as his contemporaries (Joseph Pulitzer). And in the end, even competitor Charity Hackett (Mary Welch), whom he wars with throughout the film, bears a mutual respect and comes to his aid, out of adherence to the “publisher’s code.” Hackett is the first strong female character in Fuller’s work, and she’s as “ruthless” and “ambitious,” in Mitchell’s words, as any of Fuller’s male leads.
Fuller devotes a considerable portion of Park Row to emphasizing the arduous process of putting out a newspaper circa 1886. It’s didactic in its attention to historical and technical detail (perhaps more than it should be), but it’s done with the best of intentions. A passion for the content is not enough though. Fuller’s enthusiasm comes forth in style. The camera darts and rapidly dollies and the pacing matches that of the fast-talking, deadline-driven newspapermen, with a remarkable degree of violence emerging in the competition for circulation. A majority of the budget went to constructing a four-story replica of Park Row, and though the film may have meant a good deal to Fuller, it did not gain traction with audiences. Fuller lost every cent he put into it.
Back with Fox, Fuller returned to modern times with Pickup on South Street (1953). Originally titled ‘Pick-Pocket’ (deemed “too ‘European'”), then ‘Cannon’ (sounded too much like a war movie), (5) Pickup on South Street featured Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, and Thelma Ritter as three social misfits (an impertinent pickpocket, a naive prostitute, and a world-weary stoolie, respectively) who inadvertently get mixed up in Communist espionage. Not unlike Park Row, Pickup on South Street expresses a (less reputable and more flexible) professional code. In Fuller’s streets, those of a feather watch out for their own, and just as so many of his films are adamantly pro-American, many of his characters are decidedly apolitical. Individual need is their motivation, not political ideology.
Fuller’s treatment of violence is one of creative brutality, with action and death rough, direct, and ingeniously staged: the tragic shooting of Moe, the restrained shot of Joey beating Candy, the wicked image of Skip dragging Joey down the stairs, his jaw slamming against the steps. Fuller was surprised that Zanuck “okayed a movie where the people have no taste,”(6) but he understood Fuller’s objective and would also come to Fuller’s defense when the FBI objected to some of the film’s perceived anti-Americanism.
Fuller’s abrasive dialogue, occasionally lurid and intensely realistic, sizzles with metaphors, slang, wise cracks, and profession-dictated repartee. The characters are full of life and genuine vigor, and his camera work gives his best films an overriding energy, a forcefulness shifting on a dime between calm and violence. His crime films, especially, are like hard-hitting reporting made cinematically manifest.
- Jeremy Carr, Senses of Cinema - Link Here
Samuel Fuller Interview 1/2
Rare 1990 interview of director Sam Fuller by renowned film critic Richard Schickel.
Included as Special Feautre on Criterion edition PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (1980)
Samuel Fuller Interview 2/2
Are you wavin the goddam flag at me.
Are you wavin the flag at me.
people are people - upset that she asked what made you what you are
moe represents many people he knew. There are rules about even where you
get buried. A cemetery where they screen you.
Big point - I'm going to bury her.
Fight scene with Candy- and the violence. He likes emotional not physical
violence. He went after the man because he beat after the girl...he likes the
high angle because the stuntman better be good. Put away money for the stunt
men and intercuts.
There not apolitical - they don't give a damn.
You should write with your camera, as a director. That's a director, takes the song
a few scenes it's a song lyric and he makes a symphony out of it. That's what I mean and
he hasn't lost to trying a little bit does that make sense to you?
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