Thanks for telling us about TCM. I love Fuller.
Hi Michael, I’ve only seen two of his films (The Naked Kiss and Pick Up on South Street). I enjoyed them, but haven’t investigated his work further. Thanks for the heads up — would you recommend all three that they are broadcasting? Or does one stand out above the rest?
He’s John Huston, Jr., and older stepbrother of John Cassavetes
Oh gosh, Fuller is so much better than John Huston. Huston stumbles clumsily while Fuller is brisk — Fuller never makes you laugh inadvertently as Huston does in Key Largo and Treasure of the Sierra Madre. And Fuller has camera movements that rival Preminger and Hitchcock for complexity and classiness. No comparison, imo.
Sammy really let me down on House of Bamboo.
For THE NAKED KISS, in my review section I described Fuller like this:
Depending on who you talk to, he’s a crude expressionist, an unrestrained primitive,
or an exciting visual stylist and vital iconoclast.
Even if Fuller is not the gifted artist that cinema hipsters, film theorists, and cultists would have us believe,
neither is he the reactionary polemicist and misogynist that his harshest contemporary critics dismissed him as.
He has made more bad films than good ones, yet the worst of the lot
are loaded with style and mood.
He’s odder than Robert Aldrich, more mean-spirited than Billy Wilder, and darker than Fritz Lang.
He is also less adept, in every department, than all three.
His tone is coarse and unrestrained to the point of surreal;
imagine David Lynch’s quirkiness blended with Sam Peckinpah’s brutality, and you have some
sense of what Fuller’s pictures are like.
I still stand by those statements, even though I want to like Fuller more than I do.
When I recommend his pictures to anyone, I offer a caveat, “I’m not saying it’s good. I’m saying you need to see it.”
Justin Vicari: To rate Fuller far above Huston, and to say that Huston is the clumsy one as opposed to Fuller,
makes me wonder if we are watching the same movies.
And if THE NAKED KISS isn’t a haphazard cavalcade of inadvertant chuckles, I don’t know what is.
If nothing else, he was great in Pierrot le Fou.
I didn’t think The Naked Kiss was full of chuckles — it was basically jaw dropping for me. Fuller just appeals to me more than Huston: Fuller is extremely unsentimental, and he attacks all the entrenched social institutions. He’s a radical, whereas Huston is very conservative in style and subject matter. I actually find Huston’s treatment of his characters much more vulgar and coarse than Fuller — the scene where the alcoholic moll has to sing for a drink in Key Largo, that’s pure sadism, and the scene where Bogart cracks up in Sierra Madre, well, that’s just not very well done imo and it kind of verges on being ludicrous. (Ditto most of The African Queen.) But with Fuller, you’re always kept a little off base, a little off balance, and when something happens, it’s like a wallop. It may seem absurd in some ways, but it also works the way Fuller intends it to. You basically come away from his films seeing people differently. He’s a total original.
I’ve literally just started getting into him. Watched White Dog (Enjoyed, even if it was unbearably dated at times), Shock Corridor (Really, really liked), and Pickup on South Street (Thought it was alright). I am very intrigued by him. I’ll have more to say once I’ve seen a few more of his films, but so far I really appreciate him for the diversity in his work. All three of those films were completely different to the point where I would have never been able to guess they were by the same person.
I just watched Shock Corridor again last night. Love it. Fuller was not afraid to put anything in his films. Pick Up On South Street, The Steel Helmet, Underworld USA, Naked Kiss are also really great. And so is The Street With No Name remake, The House of Bamboo. It’s been years since I’ve seen Merrill’s Marauders, and I drove across town to get a vhs copy from an independent library just so I wouldn’t have to wait for Netflix to send it. The Baron of Arizona with Vincent Price has an outrageous plot based on a true story. I’ll be watching on July 3rd.
Jane, I have to be honest, part of the reason I’m so excited about Friday is those are three of his films I’ve never seen. I really need to get that Criterion Collection box set of them.
Is there any love for The Big Red One out there? My personal favorite WWII film.
Those are the Eclipse movies on TCM by the way.
“’Film is like a battleground. Love, hate, action, violence, death. In one word, emotion.”
Go watch Forty Guns please…
Ah, ok. The pairing of Vincent Price with Fuller looks intriguing.
Francisco, Forty Guns is amazing. Fuller has some really beautiful camera set-ups there, including one that Godard totally “stole” (with an intriguing gender reversal) for Breathless.
I’ve only seen The Big Red One and Pick Up On South Street. I really need to see more of his work.
First stop; Forty Guns or Shock Corridor? What do you think?
I’ve only seen The Steel Helmet, but I loved it and I plan to watch more of his films.
Shock Corridor may be his masterpiece.
Am I a cult director? Yeah, I love all that. I want to join the cult of the 100 to 200 million grossers and still make an artistic picture. – Sam Fueller
Got to know Fuller quite bit in the 80’s as I watched him shoot “White Dog.” Marvelous man. Incredible fun to be with. “primitive” doesn’t really describe him as he was incredibly sohisticated in many ways. He was, of course, an autodidact.
WWII marked him in ways that he referrred to constantly in his work, and his conversations. In the summer of 87 I tiaght a course in “The War Film” at USC Snta Barbara, and Sam vsitied. I screened “China Gate” but he wanted to talk after a screeing of Hustons “The Battle of San Pietro” because he was in the unit that followed that battle. He descriebd what the town looked like after that crucial fight.
War was a metaphor for all thigns for Sam.
His greatest films: “Pickup on South Street,” “China Gate” (THE film about Vietnam), “Run of the Arrow,” “Shock Corridor,” “The Naked Kiss” and “White Dog.”
“The Big Red One” is teriffic too.
Best. His masterpiece is among them:
The Steel Helmet
Pickup on South Street
Baron of Arizona
Good:
Park Row
The Crimson Kimono
The Big Red One (Reconstruction)
Underworld U.S.A.
The Naked Kiss
The White Dog
These are his good films, slightly marred either by small sets or subpar actors, which was all Fuller could afford. But he worked masterfully within the constraints, making A-movies with B-materials. Most of his films are frenetically paced. Fuller was a genius at plotting. Occasionally his films veer into overly sentimental and schlocky territory, but the pacing is tight. There is always a ticking clock and rarely a quiet moment. Fuller went broke making “Park Row” because he fully believed in the project. I respect his drive to fix his vision despite tight budgets, lame actors, small sets, uncaring studios, and an indifferent public. Against all odds, Fuller wrote and shot entertaining films around 90 minutes long that were in keeping with his scripts and values.
Another thing that strikes me when watching Fuller is how liberal he was concerning diversity, mental illness, and war. He lets Japanese-Americans and black characters speak about the unfairness of their plight as minorities (“The Steel Helmet”). And yet, these characters demonstrate how celebrating their own culture while actively participating in broader American life, enriches themselves and the US with diversity. A Japanese detective is best friends, and is portrayed as equals, with a white detective (“The Crimson Kimono”). Do you know how insane and outsider that must have been in the 1950s?! Moreover, Shock Corridor , for all its unintentional silliness, took an enlightened view of the mentally ill well before it was impressed upon the mainstream consciousness by One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest . It is possible that Fuller was so visionary, and out on a limb philosophically and politically, that he was marginalized as “ahead of his time,” and when culture caught up, it quickly left his legacy in the dust.
The two films that I didn’t like were “Shock Corridor” (unintentionally schlocky, nearly to the point of Reefer Madness), and Fixed Bayonets! because it was much weaker than “The Steel Helmet” and a bit tedious. I still have to see seven or more of Fuller’s films. I’m rationing them carefully.
I was introduced to Samuel Fuller as a youth with White Dog. Although a little dated, I still love how he attacks the extremes of racism and extreme anger against it. Since then , I have seen Pickup on South Street, The Naked Kiss and Forty Guns, plus his appearance in Pierrot le Fou. I own 10 more of his movies and I am getting ready to watch The Big Red One as I type. Although I don’t consider his films masterpieces, I absolutely enjoy his films and his directorial style (kinda like Clint Eastwood’s current style as a director, i.e. Unforgiven and Gran Torino). Like many have said, he has an “in your face” approach, however, I feel that he does it from his own angle (not head on).
I do have on equestion: Does anyone know how to get hold of the two Jidge Carroll songs from Forty Guns? High Ridin’ Woman and God Has His Arms Around Me are fabulous! I tried everywhere but cannot find them. THANKS
i just saw “white dog” for the first time a few weeks ago. it was better than i expected. really interesting film. i think fuller had too much talent to make a bad film. this one almost rises to an epic level in a way his other b-films don’t. i think part of the reason is morricone’s score. it really creates a moody, dramatic feel.
and the conclusion of the film hits you on an unexpected level. theres something grand about the final high angle shot of the dog’s corpse inside that strange, large cage. when he shoots the dog, you get the feeling that humanity is lost. its a very downbeat, disturbing conclusion. as bleak and cynical as any noir.
@Jimenez
House of Bamboo is a great film imo.
“house of bamboo” is interesting and a fun watch. i dont know if i would call it top tier fuller. theres a great set-piece for an ending.
Michael
Any fans? I’m partial to The Big Red One (The Reconstruction, NOT the theatrical cut), The Naked Kiss, Shock Corridor and White Dog. Pick Up on South Street is good, too.
The guy is about as “in your face” as you can get and he’s a true personality in his own right, if you’ve ever seen interviews with him.
Also, starting at 8 p.m. on Friday July 3rd, TCM is having a mini-marathon of his films with I Shot Jesse James, The Baron of Arizona and The Steel Helmet.