fuller was admired as a primitive,the french were the first to recognised him in those terms
Alright. But what NOW, several decades later, remains special about his films, do you think?
I’ve only watched a few of his films.
The Steel Helmet is very good. For me it humanizes the soldiers and shows the desperation of battle and depravity of war better than any film not named The Thin Red Line. A Very good film with a strong narrative and moral.
The Baron of Arizona felt too formulaic to me, and I just didn’t take to it.
I tried to watch the Big Red One, but it just felt very dated. It felt very 80s to me.
fuller’s tracking shots in films like house of bambo are fully realised and sucessful,
There’s an energy and drive in Fuller’s films that are unique to his aesthetic. And a certain campy “B” streak that runs through them as well that can’t be duplicated. Plus that old-school “yellow” journalistic approach, but in the service of exposing social problems.
He’s made some great films. There’s still a large amount I haven’t seen yet. Would I call him one of the greatest American filmmakers? Maybe not. But he’s a true original, which is maybe worth just as much.
If you weren’t dramatically affected by The Naked Kiss, then I don’t really know how to explain it. That scene where she enters the house and the little girl skips past, and everything that happens in that house after that point, is shocking, horrifying, disturbing, and I could not tear my eyes away and was mesmerized by every second of it. “I thought you could accept me because you’re a dirty person too”—Holy HELL, what a fucked up guy. And everything leads up to that, you can feel it coming from the opening scene of Towers beating the shit out of her pimp to the closing where she defends herself against small town judicial prejudice with the help of the sheriff who never seemed to trust her in the first place.
That is now. Imagine this movie back when these sorts of things just weren’t shown.
—PolarisDiB
Fuller had been a New York crime reporter, a pulp novelist, a screenwriter and an infantryman in WWII before directing his first film. He had a sensibility that was quite unique to Hollywood. THE STEEL HELMET (1951) was the first film of his I saw and it blew me away, esp. the treatment of racial issues with the black medic (James Edwards), the Nisei veteran (Richard Loo), and the North Korean prisoner (Harold Fong). It didn’t soften any of the injustices or glorify or glamorize war or soldiering. That had quite an impact on me. Fuller proved you could make a highly personal film in the dark, untended corners of Hollywood genre filmmaking. And the end title blares out, “There is no end to this story!”
I gradually caught up with all of his other films. RUN OF THE ARROW (1957) intrigued me because of its theme of clash of cultures. Here was an Irishman (Rod Steiger) fighting for the Confederacy, who flees the Union and joins the Sioux. And then he listens to a U.S. army officer (Brian Keith) tell him, “The Civil War wasn’t the end of the south, it was the birth of the United States.” And the end title blares out, “The end of this story can only be written by you.”
And how about CHINA GATE (1957), in which an American soldier of fortune (Gene Barry) in Vietnam has dumped his Eurasian wife (Angie Dickinson) because their son looks “too Asian” for him and he learns to become ashamed of his attitude. Who else was treating racial and cultural issues in the 1950s with this much frankness?
Or THE CRIMSON KIMONO (1959), in which a white cop (Glenn Corbett) and his Japanese-American partner (James Shigeta) are both in love with the same woman.
Or SHOCK CORRIDOR (1963), Fuller’s masterpiece, where a reporter goes undercover in a mental asylum and has to question a southern Korean War veteran who thinks he’s a Confederate general; a black student who thinks he’s a KKK member, and a nuclear scientist who thinks he’s a child.
I could go on, but Fuller brought a punchy, pulp-style way of telling a story to larger themes and social issues, without making you feel like he was hitting you over the head with it and without feeling all self-important the way so many filmmakers today do when addressing these kinds of issues.
I think he was hitting you over the head with it, but what’s refreshing about Fuller is that he hits you over the head with it and when you say, “What the fuck, man?” he says, “What, is there any better way to do it?” and you kinda go, “Uhhh… weelllll…. Alright, fine.”
Which sticks out well considering that it really is only recently in cinema that movies have lacked hesitation in being blunt and sometimes glorifying in extreme depictions of disorders mental, social, psychological, sexual, and violent. Fuller began and continued in an era where sex, drugs, and violence was relegated to allusions and inference and was only really seen in B-movies—which is why Fuller is often considered a B-movie filmmaker (that and how he directs acting). If “B-movie” is a genre (say, the same way “art house” or “indie” movies are a genre), then Fuller fits it, but transcends it.
—PolarisDiB
Underworld USA was my introduction to Fuller… and probably the best i’ve seen thus far.
-the french were the first to recognised him in those terms-
Actually, this is not exactly true. Manny Farber, writing in the early ’50s, was already onto what Fuller was doing:
“The low budget [ of I Shot Jesse James ] appears to economize the mind of a director, forcing him into a nice balance between language and what is seen,”
“Sam Fuller’s jagged, suspenseful, off-beat variant of the Mauldin cartoon, expanded into a full-length Korean battle movie without benefit of the usual newsreel clips. Funny, morbid—the best war movie since Bataan. I wouldn’t mind seeing it seven times.”
”Blunt and abstract, [Fuller] often measures a scene into stylized positions and chunks of time"
“Though he lacks the stamina and range of Chester Gould or the endlessly creative Fats Waller, Sam Fuller directs and writes an inadvertently charming film that has some of their qualities: lyricism, real iconoclasm, and a comic lack of self-consciousness.”
I’m also inclined to believe “Shock Corridor” is his masterpiece. I need to see more to qualify that opinion though. But for me, it hits harder than both “Pickup on South Street” and “Naked Kiss.”
And how about CHINA GATE (1957), in which an American soldier of fortune (Gene Barry) in Vietnam has dumped his Eurasian wife (Angie Dickinson) because their son looks “too Asian” for him and he learns to become ashamed of his attitude. Who else was treating racial and cultural issues in the 1950s with this much frankness?
And don’t forget the Nat King Cole musical numbers! Musical numbers in a war film? Yes, that’s what Fuller was all about it.
“China Gate, China Gate/Many lives and many hearts you separate
Like two arms open wide/Some you welcome in and some you keep outside
Bowl of rice, bitter tea/Is that all the good earth has to offer me?
Will I find peace of mind/where my true love waits, behind the China Gate.”
I hope I remembered it all correctly.
Fuller on Verboten! : “I felt like a chef making a hardy soup – blending together postwar Germany, Beethoven, Wagner, unrepentant Nazis and the Nuremberg war trials,”
I’ve seen most of his films — they are always very engrossing. He was a very, very good director, often working with virtually no budget. I have no idea why anyone thinks he’s a great director. Top 100, sure. Top 20, no way.
Fuller began as a low-budget indpendent filmmaker. “The Steel Helmet” alone proved that a low-budget film that was really about something (war and racism) could be made on a budget.
This attracted Zanuck’s attention and he made a string of excellent B-movies at Fox in many different genres.
His latrer career found Fuller on his own working largely independently but once very famously for Paramount.
I was on the set of “White Dog” for about a week and a half and saw Sam shoot it. An incredible experience I shall never forget. He was a teriffic person. Funny, warm, witty — one of a kind.
He was also quite capable of an actor of sorts (he never really played characters, just let himself be inserted into movies with knowing directors) especially in Wenders’ “The State of Things.”
“White Dog” is probably my next favorite Fuller film. I was thoroughly surprised and pleased by it.
>“White Dog” is probably my next favorite Fuller film
Yep, this Fuller is very underrated, to my mind.
However, speaking of “The best of the best”… I’d lean towards “Forty Guns” – one of Godard’s favourites, moreover.
A funny Fuller story:
Sam once pitched the idea for a Dazed & Confused sequel to Linklater. It would take place on the last day of school in 1977 and revolve entirely around the paddling of freshmen by the seniors. It would be a pure genre horror film. Fuller was the first to realize (although Robin Wood also figured it out) that Linklater filmed the paddling scenes in the film using horror film mise-en-scene.
Interesting informations all around, thank you all. Deffinately have to see some of the films you mentioned Vic Pardo.
I’ve liked most of Fuller’s movies I’ve seen so far (I Shot Jesse James, Naked Kiss, The Steel Helmet) but do have to say, some of his stuff seems slightly dated. It doesn’t pack quite the punch that I’m sure it did 40 years ago. I blind bought Naked Kiss because I heard so much about it’s pulp story and how it focused on “characters of the underground”. When I watched it, the opening scene was amazing and packed quite a punch! But everything after that just turned into a “hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold” story. Was it a good movie? Absolutely, it was entertaining and I’d watch it again. But yeah, I wouldn’t say any of those are masterpieces.
And White Dog is terribly dated, terribly 80’s and kind of comes off as cheesy to me. At least when watching it now. lol just thinking about that movie makes me laugh, that dog is ridiculous.
The beggining to The Naked Kiss was indeed great. One of my all time favorite openers now that I think about it.
I’ve always thought “Naked Kiss” was a bit weak. It doesn’t do much after the great opening sequence, and really does feel a bit tame. Maybe I’d even call it an overrated Fuller.
To be completely inartistic about it:
The scene in Naked Kiss where Constance Towers tracks down the old madam that tried to recruit her friend to be a call girl, beats the shit out of her, and stuffs the dirty money in her mouth is one of the most righteously bad-ass scenes I have ever seen anywhere.
But seriously, Sam Fuller is one of my all time favorite directors, in the years when most of Hollywood was turning out schlock (post 62), Fuller’s films were bold and unafraid. Also, the man is a hell of a storyteller, in film and print.
I like Sam Fuller.
He is, like Douglas Sirk, one of those lesser-known auteurs that, late in your connoisseurship, you wake up and discover and say, “Gee, he wasn’t half-bad! He had a vision and a taste and a style that perhaps has been under-appreciated!”
Contrast that with some filmic personalities who have been WAY-Y-Y over-appreciated . You know who they are… ahem…
He had a flare for churning out taut scripts (a lot of pulp noir) with hot-button themes that catered mainly to the male audience. Sam Peckinpah followed in his footsteps. Check out “White Dog,” “Shock Corridor” and the “First Films” box on Criterion’s sister Eclipse. And of course, the Big Red One Reconstruction is mandatory Fuller viewing. A war masterpiece.
I’m not bashing or even criticizing Fuller, I’m merely trying to ask what are your individual opinions of why Fuller is considered so great and is so respected and revered?-———————————————————
Well watch those two films again. They are genre stories with pulp origins but the emotions underneath it is entirely serious and sincere. Like THE NAKED KISS is NOT, despite its title and its plot an exploitation film of any kind at all but a deep powerful lament of loss-of-innocence and dreams and especially moving since the innocence and dreams is that of a former prostitute. Then PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET is a terrific thriller that’s always exciting and never boring for a milisecond but it has a powerful feeling about how “The other half lives”. That waterfront abode of Richard Widmark is one of the most unforgettable locations in movie history containing in its boards and ramshackle interiors a whole history.
If you look at the other Fuller films what you’ll find is a remarkable consistency, I’ve seen 15 or 16 of his films and there’s not one bad film in that bunch. Some are better than others, quite a few are masterpieces. The main reason that Fuller is so important is that he’s an authentic voice, he has great amount of life experience that comes off in all his films and he is sincere and unsentimental and he has this amazing visual style, bold compositions, intense editing and powerful close-ups. Even his dialogues which people kept complaining(even his friend John Ford for instance) really works as dialogues on screen, it has a poetic flavour. There’s quite simply nothing like him, his tracking shots could be acrobatic like Ophuls on Acid and he had a political sophistication and sense of humour that’s very new and timeless. Serge Daney described him for all times when he called him “war correspondent and mad educator”.
Also amazing part of Fuller’s career is that after falling out of the movie business in the 60s and a period in the 60s and 70s where he mostly appeared in movies by other directors he came back in the 80s with two super-masterpieces made together – THE BIG RED ONE and WHITE DOG. Both of them were among the greatest films of the 80s and the film-making is as exciting and full of adventure as ever, despite the dark pessimistic undercurrent in the two films. He made them as if he never left.
Love Fuller in Wenders’ “The State of Things.”
Hidden Behind the Screen
I watched The Naked Kiss and thought it was a pretty good film. Nothing THRILLING but pretty good.
Then my second Fuller was the recently watched “Pickup on South Street”…Which I thought was alot better, and an excellently crafted noir.
I’m not bashing or even criticizing Fuller, I’m merely trying to ask what are your individual opinions of why Fuller is considered so great and is so respected and revered? I’ve yet to see anything truly REMARKABLE about his films though I have enjoyed the two I’ve seen so far. (Obviously I have a few more to see before I can be a fair judge, which is why I"m asking you)