4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
On this date, 110 years ago, Samuel Fuller was born in Massachusetts. Before he became a filmmaker, Fuller was a crime reporter and a pulp novelist. His films were often melodramatic and unapologetically sordid. They were also often dismissed when they were initially released but almost all of them were subsequently rediscovered by audiences who appreciated Fuller’s striking visuals and the often subversive subtext to be found underneath the surface of his genre films.
Today, we celebrate Fuller’s legacy with….
4 Shots From 4 Sam Fuller Films
Pickup on South Street (1953, dir by Samuel Fuller, DP: Joseph MacDonald)
Shock Corridor (1963, dir by Samuel Fuller, DP: Stanley Cortez)
The Naked Kiss (1964, dir by Samuel Fuller, DP: Stanley Cortez)
The Big Red One (1980, dir by Samuel Fuller, DP: Adam Greenberg)
The 1977 German film, The American Friend, tells the story of two men.
Tom Ripley (played by Dennis Hopper) is an American. He’s also a very wealthy criminal. He wears a cowboy hat almost everywhere he goes and always tends to be a little bit too forceful when he talks to people. Because he’s wealthy, he is tolerated by high society but everyone seems to view him with a bit of suspicion. And perhaps they should because Ripley actually has a pretty good scheme going. Working with an artist named Derwatt (director Nicholas Ray), Ripley sells forged paintings. He goes to auctions and bids on these paintings, artificially driving up the price. When Ripley isn’t selling forged paintings, he’s traveling around the world and speaking into his tape recorder. He’s an existential cowboy, one who doesn’t appear to have any morals but who is still capable of exclaiming, “I’m confused!” with real anguish in his voice.
Jonathan Zimmerman (Bruno Ganz) is a German art restorer and picture framer who has a beautiful wife, two children, and a lovely shop. He also has leukemia and is obsessed not only with his impending death but also his fear that he’s going to end his life without really doing anything memorable. When Jonathan meets Ripley at an art auction, he refuses to shake Ripley’s hand because he knows about Ripley’s shady reputation. Ripley is offended but slightly forgiving when he learns, from a mutual acquaintance, that Jonathan has been sick.
Back at his mansion, Ripley receives a message from a French gangster named Minot (Gerard Blain). Minot wants Ripley to murder a rival gangster for him. Ripley, however, tells Minot that he should contact Jonathan and offer him the contract. Ripley then spreads a rumor that Jonathan’s illness has gotten worse and that both his doctor and his family are keeping the truth from him. Now believing that he’s on the verge of dying and desperate to make some money so that his family won’t be helpless after he’s gone, Jonathan is far more open to accepting Minot’s unexpected offer to become a hired gun.
To his shock, Jonathan is able to carry out the murder. However, Minot is not content to just have Jonathan kill one man. Minot is concerned about the activities of an American gangster (played by director Sam Fuller) and he expects Jonathan to keep killing for him. Meanwhile, Ripley, feeling a bit conflicted over his part in Jonathan’s new career, take it upon himself to help Jonathan out in his latest assignment. And so, on odd friendship is born….
The American Friend is based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel Ripley’s Game (which, itself, is a sequel to oft-filmed The Talented Mr. Ripley). In Highsmith’s novels, Ripley was always portrayed as being suave, well-spoken, and never suffering from self-doubt. Dennis Hopper plays Ripley as a cowboy who appears to be in the throes of an existential crisis. It’s quite the opposite of the literary Ripley but it works perfectly in the world created by The American Friend. At times, there’s something almost child-like about Hopper’s Ripley. As played by Hopper, Ripley is an unintentional force of destruction, one who targets Jonathan on an impulse and then, just as impulsively, decides to help him out. It’s one of Hopper’s best and most multi-layered performances.
Dennis Hopper is equally matched by the great Bruno Ganz, who plays Jonathan as being a gentle soul who is as shocked as anyone to discover that he’s capable of murder. Though he is morally offended by Ripley’s reputation, he still can’t help but try to help Ripley out when Ripley unexpectedly shows up at his shop. Even towards the end of the film, Jonathan seems to be so happy to finally be doing something unexpected with his life that his joy is almost infectious. You’re happy for him, even though you know things probably won’t turn out well for him.
As directed by Wim Wenders, The American Friend is a perfect mix of existential angst and film noir homage. While there’s undoubtedly a political subtext to the film — one gets the feeling that Ripley’s destructive friendship with Jonathan is meant to represent the way that America views Europe — The American Friend works best as an homage to the glorious B-movies of the 40s and 50s. (It’s probably not a coincidence that both Nicholas Ray and Samuel Fuller have prominent supporting roles.) There’s a sequence on a train that’s the equal to Hitchcock at his best and the story’s conclusion will stick with you long after the film ends.
Sadly, most of the principle members of the cast are no longer with us. All of them are at their best in The American Friend and Wim Wenders gives them all a terrific showcase in which to display their talent. The American Friend is definitely a film worth tracking down.
We all know and love Vincent Price for his creepy performances in horror films, from his demented Henry Jarrod in HOUSE OF WAX, to all those AIP/Roger Corman/Edgar Allan Poe shockers, to his turn as The Inventor in EDWARD SCISSORHANDS. But the actor was more than just a screen fiend, playing in many a filmnoir, comedies, costume swashbucklers, and even the Western genre. Our Man Vinnie got top billing in a strange little oater titled THE BARON OF ARIZONA, and as a bonus for film fans the director is a young tyro by the name of Samuel Fuller!
In this bloodless but gripping outing, Price plays James Addison Revis, a swindler, con man, and forger who concocts an elaborate, grandiose scheme to gain control over the Arizona Territory in 1882. He begins his con game ten years earlier by grooming an orphaned waif named Sofia to later be…
When I first decided to do this series on embracing the melodrama, I knew that I would have to include at least one film from Sam Fuller. A former war hero and tabloid journalist, Sam Fuller made films that felt like a punch in the face to everything that he considered to be hypocritical about American society. Fuller’s films may have been B-movies and they certainly were unapologetic about being melodramas but, at the same time, they were — at the time of their release — some of the only films willing to deal with controversial subject matter. While the rest of American filmmakers embraced safety, Fuller could always be counted on to be dangerous.
For instance, at a time when most films were celebrating “good girls” and punishing the bad ones with unplanned pregnancies and bad reputations, Fuller directed a film in which the heroine was a former prostitute and the main villains came from every corner of respectable society. That film was 1964’s The Naked Kiss.
The Naked Kiss opens with a scene as striking and as memorable as one of the tabloid headlines that Fuller would have cranked out back in his days as a journalist. Kelly (Constance Towers), a prostitute, attacks her pimp with her purse (with the camera often standing in for the pimp’s point-of-view so, for a good deal of the scene, Kelly appears to be striking those of us in the audience). During the struggle, Kelly’s wig is knocked from her head, revealing her to be bald.
Fleeing from her pimp, Kelly ends up in the town of Grantville, where her first customer turns out to be Griff (Anthony Eisley), the chief of police. Once they’ve completed their business, Griff informs Kelly that it might be a better idea for her to find a more permissive town in which to set up operations. However, Kelly has decided that Grantville would be the perfect place for her to escape from her past and start a new life.
Despite Griff’s continued attempts to get her to leave town, Kelly finds a job working, with handicapped children, in a pediatric ward. Full of empathy for children who have been just as abused as she has, Kelly proves herself to be an excellent nurse. She is also soon dating the most powerful and popular man in town, J.L. Grant (Michael Dante). Grant, at first, seems to be the perfect man and Kelly soon falls in love with him. Even after she reveals the truth about her past, Grant says that he wants to marry her.
However, things change when Kelly drops by Grant’s mansion one day and discovers Grant on the verge of molesting a little girl. (Making the scene all the more disturbing is the children’s song that plays in the background through almost the entire scene.) Grant explains that he’s a deviant, just like her. Kelly’s reaction forces both her and the citizens of Grantville to confront the truth about who they really are.
Though The Naked Kiss is often overshadowed by Fuller’s Shock Corridor (which was released the year before), The Naked Kiss is actually the better film of the two. Along with Fuller’s lively direction and Constance Towers’ strong performance as Kelly, The Naked Kiss is also distinguished by Stanley Cortez’s atmospheric black-and-white cinematography. The scenes in which Kelly sings with the children and then discovers Grant with his potential victim could both be textbook examples of how to properly stage a scene. This unapologetically tawdry film is also an undeniably great one and you can watch it below!
For today’s entry in the 44 Days of Paranoia, let’s take a look at Sam Fuller’s 1953 film noir, Pickup on South Street.
Pickup On South Street opens with Candy (Jean Peters) on a subway. In her purse, she’s carrying an envelope that’s been given to her by her boyfriend, the rather shady Joey (Richard Kiley). Candy is delivering the envelope to friends of Joey. What Candy doesn’t know is that Joey and his friends are communists and that the envelope contains top secret micro-film. She also doesn’t know that she’s being followed by both the FBI and Skip Martin (Richard Widmark), a professional pickpocket.
Skip picks Candy’s purse and, without realizing it, steals the microfilm that everyone wants. With the help of professional informant Moe (Thelma Ritter, a great character actress who gives a great performance here), both Candy and the police track down Skip and try to get him to return the microfilm. Skip, however, has figured out what he’s stolen and announces that he’ll give the microfilm to whichever group is the first to pay him $25,000. When the FBI make the mistake of trying to appeal to his patriotism, Skip merely smirks and asks, “Are you waving the flag at me?”
In his introduction to Sam Fuller’s autobiography A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting, and Filmmaking, Martin Scorsese writes, “(I)f you don’t like the films of Sam Fuller, then you just don’t like cinema.” Now, I really can’t say whether that’s true or not because, while I love cinema, I’ve only seen three of the films that Sam Fuller directed over the course of his long career: The Naked Kiss, Shock Corridor, and now Pickup On South Street. However, I can say that I loved all three of those films. The Naked Kiss I loved because I happen to love old films that expose the secrets of small town America. As Arleigh can tell you, I fell in love with Shock Corridor the minute that the film’s hero said, “NYMPHOS!” As for Pickup On South Street, I love it because it’s truly a great film and one of the best B-movie ever made.
And make no mistake about it — Pickup On South Street is a B-movie, a melodramatic, wonderfully sordid, and terrifically entertaining B-movie. It’s a thriller that both embraces and subverts the conventions of the genre and, as a result, it tells a story that manages to be both over-the-top and subtle at the same time. By focusing on those on the margins of society, the Skips and the Moes of the world, Fuller also forces us to confront just how little the ideology of a government means to those of us who live on the margins of society.
This is certainly made clear by Thelma Ritter’s poignant performance as Moe, one of the weary inhabitants of the margins who has been reduced to just hoping that she’ll have enough money when she dies to be buried in a decent plot. One watches Pickup on South Street and realizes that, regardless of which side ultimately end up with the microfilm, people like Moe are still most likely going to end up getting buried in an pauper’s grave.
Watching Pickup On South Street, it’s easy to see why Martin Scorsese had such high praise for Fuller. Fuller’s camera literally never stops moving, nervously darting through the urban landscape and occasionally zooming in for a close-up of either a desperate face or Richard Widmark’s smirk. And make no doubt about it — Richard Widmark’s charming but infuriating smirk tells you everything that you need to know about both the character Skip McCoy and Pickup On South Street as a film. It’s a smirk that lets us know that both the character and the film are a lot more intelligent than they initially let on.
Pickup on South Street is a film that every lover of cinema must see. And, after you’ve seen it, why not get a copy of Fuller’s autobiography? It’s an interesting read.
Through the Shattered Lens 