Auteur Scorecard: Sam Fuller

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1
The Real Glory: Reconstructing 'The Big Red One' (2005,  R)
2
Pickup on South Street (1953,  Unrated)
Pickup on South Street
At first view this film appears to mainly younger viewers and simple red scare propaganda but of course you can't grasp the finer points of the film w/one viewing. Re watching the film it's impressive how mature Fuller is in dealing w/themes of communism.....he doesn't; he doesn't embrace the red scare at all summing up the attitude with that one immortal line 'Are you wavin a flag at me'. Fuller's charters were described as anarchists because they didn't take a side and this film is no exception. Fuller gives us a bleak world in all its pulpy glory where the people who occupy it are not concerned w/politics or who's a communist, its just learning to do business w/ whoever that matters when your on the lowest level of the criminal underworld and scratching up change just for a decent funeral, and most of the time happen to be the cops only hope. Only Fuller could present a vision like this on film.
3
Shock Corridor (1963,  Unrated)
4
I Shot Jesse James (1949,  Unrated)
5
White Dog (1982,  PG)
6
The Steel Helmet (1951,  Unrated)
7
The Naked Kiss (2001,  Unrated)
8
Underworld U.S.A (1961,  Unrated)
9
The Big Red One (1980,  PG)
10
Forty Guns (1957,  Unrated)
Forty Guns
One of the goddamnist strangest westerns there is as only someone like Fuller could give us. the plot itself is pretty straight forward, withe the Marshall ride into town to bring law and order to a small town controlled by Barbra Stanwyck and her Forty men, sounds simple enough but like Roger Ebert says 'it's not what film is about it's how it's about"

Fuller's dealing with a pretty conventional story, but his story telling is anything but. Fuller incorporates songs sung by characters on screen, sexual innuendoes, unique p.o.v shots, insane close-ups(shamelessly ripped off by leone) and unexpected violence. The most nuanced aspect of the film it's view on the death of the old west is purely Fuller especially with brilliant lines like when Barry Sullivan talking about how gunslinger's are becoming nothing but freaks, says more about the west dying than any Leone western.

Obviously I was pretty taken with the film just when you think you've seen everything the genre has to offer you discover a gem like Forty Guns. However the film still is not perfect it like much of Fuller's work is moe than slightly bogged down by censorship and it's pretty evident however Fuller was clever enough not to try to get around the censors he intentionally make the scene appear pasted on, which still allows the audience to feel what his vision wanted to encompass.
11
House of Bamboo (1955,  Unrated)
12
Fixed Bayonets (1951,  Unrated)
13
The Baron of Arizona (1950,  Unrated)
14
Hell and High Water (1954,  Unrated)
15
Street of No Return (1991,  Unrated)
16
Run of the Arrow (1957,  Unrated)
17
Park Row (1952,  Unrated)
18
Merrill's Marauders (1962,  Unrated)
19
The Crimson Kimono (1959,  Unrated)

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