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During
his happily overactive lifetime, Sam Fuller
lived the lives of many men --- journalist
during the Golden Age of New York newspapers,
World War Two G. I. Joe, and Hollywood
director. As a reporter in the 20s and
'30s he chronicled the lives of hookers
and gangsters, everyday people and society's
unfortunates. As a soldier, he fought
inch by inch and foot by foot through
the North African and Italian campaigns,
the invasion of D-Day, and the liberation
of the Nazi death camps. As a filmmaker,
he did the undoable – he wrote,
produced and directed some of the most
personal and unique movies ever made within
the studio system --- Pickup on South
Street, Run of the Arrow, Forty
Guns, to name a few – and long
before the great Cassavetes, he created
a truly independent American cinema with
such landmark works as The Steel Helmet,
Park Row, Underworld USA, Shock Corridor,
and The Naked Kiss , paving
the way for countless filmmakers to follow,
giving us one of the richest bodies of
work in the annals of motion pictures.
If
you've seen any of the above mentioned
movies, you know that a Fuller film is
utterly unique; if you haven't, check
these out along with I Shot Jesse
James, Fixed Bayonets, House of Bamboo,
China Gate, Verboten!, Merrill's Marauders,
Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street, White
Dog and especially The Big Red
One ... war movies, crime flicks, melodramas
all. I could cite countless amazing scenes,
dozens of great lines, unexpected plot
twists and turns from his pictures, but
they are truly indescribable, and besides,
I'd be robbing the uninitiated of the
great joy of discovering the Fuller oeuvre
on their own. For Fuller, it was all about
the "yarn," and these are the best ever
spun on celluloid.
Sam
Fuller died in 1997 at the age of 85.
He left the bold, beautiful gift of his
autobiography, A Third Face: My Tale
of Fighting, Writing and Filmmaking ,
completed by his beloved wife Christa
Lang and his dear friend Jerry Rudes (creator
of the Avignon and New York/Avignon Film
Festivals). Knopf published the hardcover
book last year, and this month it comes
out in paperback from Applause Books.
The
heart and the soul of the man is evident
in every sentence of the book –
the same way you can feel his passion
in every frame of every film he ever made,
Fuller's passion for life and for work
fills this book. Passion is an overused
word but read The Third Face and
see what it really means. Fuller ate life
with a knife and fork, and more often
than not, devoured it with his hands like
Henry VIII tearing into a leg of mutton.
His
almost animalistic lust for life pervades
these pages. Have you ever seen Tim Robbins
brilliant Fuller documentary The Typewriter,
The Rifle and The Camera or Richard
Schickel's Fuller entry in his The
Men Who Made The Movies series?
If you have, you know what Fuller sounded
like – a cigar-throated Noo Yawk
Bowery Boy-inflected voice, the voice
of a man who clearly entertained himself
as much as he entertained his audience.
But
if you haven't, it doesn't matter –
Christa Lang and Jerry Rudes have made
sure Fuller's unstoppable voice leaps
from the pages just by virtue of their
editing of a book that could easily have
been bowdlerized in less capable, less
loving hands.
There
have been any number of great film director
autobiographies – William Wellman's
A Short Time for Insanity, Raoul
Walsh's Each Man in His Time --
and much as I love those books, I say
unequivocally that The Third Face
is the best autobiography ever penned
by a filmmaker.
Fuller's
Manhattan upbringing, his urban crime
reportage, his WWII experiences, his up-and-down
filmmaking life through good times and
bad, his personal life culminating in
the ultimate happy ending with the wonderful
Christa Lang, his love for their daughter
Samantha, his re-emergence as a movie
icon late in life through the efforts
of Bogdanovich, Godard, Wenders, Jarmusch,
Tarantino, Robbins, Larry Cohen and Jerry
Rudes – it's all here, nothing saccharine,
nothing sentimental, just the hard-boiled
lessons learned from a man who lived life
as much as anyone has ever lived.
The
real beauty of The Third Face
is that you don't have to be familiar
with Fuller to reap the benefits of the
read. A Fuller fan will utterly consume
the volume. Any filmmaker, neophyte, veteran
or anywhere in between, will have a guaranteed
epiphany as you hear about the projects
that never happened, and the financial
politics and show biz bullshit that's
as relevant in 2003 as it was in 1956
-- in addition to the successes and the
times when everything works economically,
creatively and personally. For the general
reader, The Third Face is an unbelievably
inspirational story of a life well lived
... with all the good, the bad and the ugly
that life has to offer. In other words,
this is more than a great director's memoir
– this is a primer for living.
The
fact that Sam Fuller left a legacy of
great movies is a bonus, that Christa
Lang Fuller and Jerry Rudes completed
his book and have made it available for
the ages is literary icing on the cake.
And oh yeah, one more thing – The
Third Face is one of the most fun
reads you'll ever have.
April also brings us the Criterion DVD
release of one of Fuller's finest, Pickup
on South Street, a Cold War noir
starring Richard Widmark as a pickpocket
who unwittingly lifts a microfilm of government
secrets. Aligned with a sexy prostitute
(the gorgeous Jean Peters), Widmark is
trailed by Feds and Communists through
downtown Manhattan, and there's a stunning
performance from Thelma Ritter. The DVD
consists of a new high-definition digital
transfer with restored picture and sound;
a video interview with Fuller by Richard
Schickel; Cinema Cinemas: Fuller ,
a French TV show with Fuller taking us
through a blow-by-blow analysis of the
opening sequence; an illustrated biographical
essay on Fuller; a gallery of posters
from all of Fuller's films; trailers for
eight Fuller Films; an excerpt from The
Third Face , including Martin Scorsese's
introduction; a new essay by Luc Sante,
author of the sensational New York underworld
history Low Life; and still galleries
of photos, lobby cards and original paintings.
Criterion's DVDs are always the best on
the market – they've outdone themselves
with this set.
Pickup on South Street is also
being featured this month at Jerry Rudes'
Avignon/New York Film Festival, running
April 19 th through the 25 th in Manhattan
(see www.avignonfilmfest.com
for details). This is a great, intimate
festival, showcasing new French and American
features and shorts. Yes, I'm partial
to this festival – my film Blue
Moon won the Best American Feature
prize in 2000 – but trust me, this
is a fabulous festival.
CUPIDITY : Speaking of
festivals, the New York Independent Film
and Video Festival runs from April 22
nd through May 2 nd ( www.nyfilmvideo.com
) showing nearly 300 features and
shorts; on the evening of May 2 nd my
new feature Cupidity has its
world premiere. It's a romantic comedy
completely improvised by myself and my
cast. I've directed and/or produced the
first films of John Leguizamo, Amanda
Peet, Gretchen Mol, Zach Braff, to name
a few and I believe the cast of Cupidity
includes a group of newcomers who
have great acting futures ahead: James
Gilmartin, Bethany Emerson, Steve Stanulis,
Michele Coniglio, Glen Howard, Jared Miller,
to name just a few. For a look at the
poster, go to www.cupiditymovie.com
.
MORE
BOOK NEWS : A definitive, up-to-date
study of Francis Ford Coppola –
who, along with his many other awards,
was presented with the NBR's Billy Wilder
for Excellence in Direction a few years
ago – has been long overdue, and
now we have one from Gene D. Phillips,
called, appropriately, Godfather: The
Intimate Francis Ford Coppola (The
University Press of Kentucky). In his
customary straightforward style, Phillips
covers Coppola's life and career, including
of course The Godfather trilogy
and both versions of Apocalypse Now.
Highly recommended.
MORE
SAM FULLER : In 1986, in conjunction
with the release of The Delta Force,
I was fortunate to interview Lee Marvin.
Here's what he had to say about working
with Sam Fuller on The Big Red One:
JOHN
GALLAGHER: When did Fuller first approach
you to star in The Big Red One?
LEE
MARVIN: Christ, a good 20 years before
we made it. He'd call me every so often
and say, "We're doing it." I'd say "I'm
ready when you are," then I wouldn't hear
from him. We finally did it. As you know,
it was his pet project. He was in the
real Big Red One during the war, and Bobby
Carradine's character is based on the
real Sam ... with the constant cigar, and
especially the scene where Bobby sees
the grunt reading a paperback ( The
Dark Page ), the novel Sammy wrote.
Sammy and John Ford had a running thing
over the years
(note
: Lee Marvin starred in Ford's The
Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and
Donovan's Reef). Every year on
the anniversary of D-Day, Ford would call
Fuller on the phone, say "Fuck the Big
Red One!" and hang up. Ford was Navy.
JG:
You shot The Big Red One in
Israel.
LM:
Yeah, they had the hardware and I guess
the price was right. I loved Sam ... nobody
yelled "Action!" louder than Sam Fuller,
I can tell you that. This was his baby,
and he was there, so it was the real deal.
We shot a helluva lot more stuff than
ended up in the finished picture, who
the hell knows where it is now.
As an addendum, Jerry Rudes tells me that
reconstruction is underway to fully restore
The Big Red One to its original
director's cut. Keep reading this column
for more details as I get 'em ...
-- JOHN GALLAGHER
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