Out this week Wild Hogs, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Jim Henson times 2, and more

Glenn Kenny's "The Discophile"
(posted 7/31/2007)

SAMUEL FULLER
"Film is a battleground," Samuel Fuller rasped to Jean-Paul Belmondo in Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot le Fou, after Belmondo's character requested a definition of cinema from the director, who briefly appears as himself in the picture. Frequently described as a "primitive" — in a good way! — by the critics and filmmakers who embraced his work in the '50s and '60s, the New York–born Fuller put his money where his mouth was when it came to his philosophy of movies. A WWII vet who cut his professional teeth in the tabloids and the pulps, his pictures were oft-lurid, no-hold-barred tales of tough guys and gals in tough straits, and they took on the burning issues of the day (even when they were set in a different period from the day) with a peculiar mix of hard-headedness and sentimentality. It's not the most nuanced of work, but it sure is full-bodied.

A scene from The Baron of Arizona

Fuller's not badly represented on DVD; Fox has put out solid versions of his Fixed Bayonets, 40 Guns, and House of Bamboo — all stunners — as well as his somewhat less Hell and High Water; Criterion-released Shock Corridor, The Naked Kiss, and Pickup on South Street; Fantoma released his very peculiar 1989 thriller Street of No Return and has been set to release another latter-day Fuller, Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street, for some time now. Warner Home Video released a terrific reconstruction of his truncated 1980 WWII film The Big Red One a couple of years back. Now Eclipse, the Criterion Collection subsidiary specializing in compilations of rare and overlooked titles by great (and sometimes themselves overlooked) filmmakers, gives us Fuller's first three pictures, all made for independent producer Robert Lippert: 1949's I Shot Jesse James, 1950's The Baron of Arizona, and 1951's The Steel Helmet. All made on shoestring budgets, they're works of idiosyncratic vitality.

I Shot Jesse James is a tale of Robert Ford, the "dirty little coward" of song and legend who plugged the outlaw James in the back. While not quite an apologia for Ford, the film is sympathetic to him even as it portrays him as something of a dumb lug. After he does the deed, Ford, well-portrayed by John Ireland, becomes a haunted and pursued dumb lug, and the psychological intensity of Fuller's near-constant close-ups is a remarkable effect.

Baron is based — very loosely, as is the case with the prior film — on another true-life figure, one James Addison Reavis, a spectacular con artist who tried to claim the not-yet-state of Arizona as his own land by forging elaborate Spanish claims for it. It's a story Mark Twain could have told and made into a marvelous satire, but Fuller turns it into a story of relentless obsession and an observation about the roots of the American character. Vincent Price turns in one of his best performances as the title character.

Finally, there's The Steel Helmet, a Korean War picture released a mere six months after the start of the U.S.'s military action there, starring Fuller favorite Gene Evans as a Sergeant trying to hold together a querulous patrol. His first contemporary picture, it's packed with Fulleresque takes on race relations and war, none of which detract from a suspenseful and oft-jarring storyline. These pictures are more than historical milestones; they're unique entertainments. Eclipse presents them without extras as is usual for them; and while some have complained that the films themselves look chintzy — well, the materials aren't nearly as artifact-filled as some prints of the films I've seen are, and, as it happens, these were low-budget movies to begin with. (The great cinematographer James Wong Howe, by the way, shot Baron, and it bears his signature touch with chiaruscuro and such; on the other hand, it's not as slick as, say, King's Row.) The fact is that these are all far better than watchable.