Eclipse Series 5: The First Films of Samuel Fuller [Blu-ray] [US]

His films have been called raw, outrageous, sensational, and daring. In four decades of directing, Samuel Fuller created a legendarily idiosyncratic oeuvre, examining U.S. history and mythmaking in westerns, film noirs, and war epics. And, characteristically, it all began with a bang: after “printing the legend” with the elegant B pictures I Shot Jesse James and The Baron of Arizona, he got himself into hot water with the FBI with The Steel Helmet, the first American movie to portray the Korean War. These three independent films—showing off Fuller’s genre diversity, gutter wit, and subversive force—set the stage for his controversial career in moviemaking.

I Shot Jesse James (1949)

After years of crime reporting, screenwriting, and authoring pulp novels, Samuel Fuller made his directorial debut with the lonesome ballad of Robert Ford (played by Red River’s John Ireland), who fatally betrayed his notorious friend Jesse James. At once modest and intense, I Shot Jesse James is an engrossing pocket portrait of guilt and psychological torment, and an auspicious beginning for the maverick filmmaker.


The Baron of Arizona (1950)

In one of his own favorite roles, Vincent Price portrays legendary swindler James Addison Reavis, who in 1880 concocted an elaborate and dangerous hoax to name himself the “Baron” of Arizona, and therefore inherit all the land in the state. Samuel Fuller adapts this tall tale to film with fleet, elegant storytelling and a sly sense of humor.


The Steel Helmet (1951)

The Steel Helmet marked Samuel Fuller’s official arrival as a mighty cinematic force. Despite its relatively low budget, this portrait of Korean War soldiers dealing with moral and racial identity crises remains one of the director’s most gripping, realistic depictions of the blood and guts of war, as well as a reflection of Fuller’s irreducible social conscience. So controversial were the film’s comments on domestic and war crimes (American bigotry, the Japanese American World War II internment camps) that Fuller became the target of an FBI investigation.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• An essay by film critic Nick Pinkerton