The First Films of Samuel Fuller: Eclipse Series 5
Criterion Collection, $44.95More than half a century before this year's deadly conflicted The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Sam Fuller's starter pistol – a Colt .45 – touched off principal shooting on his swift 1949 directorial debut, I Shot Jesse James. Recipient of a Purple Heart, plus Bronze and Silver Stars in World War II as a member of the U.S. Army infantry ("the Big Red One"), Fuller suffered neither cowards nor introspectives gladly. A prolific writer, his pulp journalism trial by fire in the 1930s demonstrated that action spoke louder than talk, his dynamic cinematic oeuvre filled with thinkers forced to act and forces of nature backed into contemplation. Words prompt deeds that lead to a man's inexorable fate decided by circumstance, and no man can alter his intrinsic nature. Robert Ford (John Ireland) resembles neither coward nor introspective, but think-before-you-act goes out the saloon door once logic becomes directed by simple intellect and an itch to action. Fuller's less successful follow-up, 1950's The Baron of Arizona, stars Vincent Price as "a fake, a forger, a swindler, and a thief" trying to con the federal government out of its newly minted 48th state. As with most of the writer/director's characters – this one based on historical fact – Price's Baron reveals himself early yet never acts predictably, the story even less so once Fuller outs Arizona as a love story midway through. Both efforts, however, only warm up for Fuller's third film and trilogy flourish here, The Steel Helmet (1951), a B-movie ace shot in two weeks for $100,000 that brought in millions. Fuller's Korean War Heart of Darkness beats not one misstep in its brutal existentialism and progressively clear-eyed politics, his necessary economy of style setting the stage for later American masterworks such as the Criterion issue of 1953's gleaming Pickup on South Street. Stand and deliver.
