"Whatya got to eat?" asks Bob Ford, who backshot his great friend Jesse James not too long ago. Says Joe, the bartender at the Silver King Saloon in Creede, Colorado, "Sweet corn, cornmeal mush, cornpone with cracklins and corn whiskey." "I'll have it," says Bob.
Lukewarm corn, cooked ambitiously, is about all there is in Sam Fuller's debut as a director. Fuller had been writing scripts and story outlines in Hollywood for quite awhile. Finally he made a three-movie deal with a B movie producer: If I can direct the movies, and I won't charge you, I'll write the screenplays.
The first of the three, I Shot Jesse James, is a potentially intriguing story of a loser, but told with a script that has little tension, directed with little flair and acted, for the most part, with a dull, steady cadence. A good deal of the dialogue and many of the actors are just competent. Still, if you're a Fuller fan, I Killed Jesse James may be worth watching. It's part of Criterion's Eclipse Series 5 - The First Films of Samuel Fuller. The set includes The Baron of Arizona and Steel Helmet.
Fuller, in my view, was not one of the great directors (or screenwriters; he usually wrote his own screenplays). He wasn't one of the great craftsmen, either. What he had was a tough, knock-about personal story, a confident willingness to dance to his own music, a streak of subversiveness that could undermine the fatuousness of Hollywood, the establishment and the nervous, and enough talent to take the commonplace material and actors he often was dealt and turn at least parts of his movies into something to admire. He was the kind of Hollywood non-Hollywood director that some cineastes and film critics adore. It would take a person wearing blinders, however, not to recognize that his movies are, at best, variable. Most of them don't hold up very well unless the viewer has been first captured by Sam Fuller's iconic anti-establishment reputation. Pickup on South Street is probably his best work, with fine performances by an A-level cast, an unusual script considering it was originally intended as an anti-Commie screed, and a story that Fuller keeps moving along. The Big Red One, highly praised by many, is an effective and realistic war movie dear to Fuller's heart. But it seems (to me) to go indulgently on and on and on.
For the rest of his movies, those that I've seen, there's just excellent bits and pieces mixed into a B-movie sensibility, awkward dialogue (almost any scenes involving a man and woman), and too much discursiveness. Fuller, in my opinion, needed a strong editor to work with and a strong writer with whom to collaborate. I have a feeling that Fuller would find either prospect completely unsatisfactory. Shock Corridor and The Naked Kiss, anointed by Criterion, for me aren't just pulp movies, they're almost embarrassing examples of overwrought pulp movies. This is all just opinion. Watch The Naked Kiss and see what you think.
But back to I Shot Jesse James. When Bob Ford (John Ireland) puts a bullet in the back of his friend, Jesse James, Ford hopes to gain amnesty and a large reward. He'd been befriended by James and had been part of James' gang. Ford wants to marry the love of his life, the singer Cynthy Waters (Barbara Britton). He thinks he can leave the criminal life and settle down with Cynthy. Instead she rejects him. He's called a coward and a backshooter. Most people hold him in contempt. He gets only a small part of the reward. He still thinks that if only he can make money he can win Cynthy. And there's that straight talking' guy who likes Cynthy, too, a man named John Kelley (Preston Foster, top billed) who keeps showing up. There's a showdown, and that's that.
John Ireland, in my view, had a lot of screen presence, but he needed a good script and strong direction to be at his best. Just watch him as Fantail in Raw Deal (1948), as Cherry Valance in Red River (1948) and as Jack Burden in All the King's Men (1949). Even in a piece of Brit noir schlock, The Glass Tomb (1955), he brings enough quality and interest to make it worth watching. Here, he's constrained by an uninspired script that gives him no opportunity to do anything but show what a sad sack loser Bob Ford is. But wait until that showdown. It only lasts a couple of minutes, but John Ireland shows what he can do.
Lukewarm corn, cooked ambitiously, is about all there is in Sam Fuller's debut as a director. Fuller had been writing scripts and story outlines in Hollywood for quite awhile. Finally he made a three-movie deal with a B movie producer: If I can direct the movies, and I won't charge you, I'll write the screenplays.
The first of the three, I Shot Jesse James, is a potentially intriguing story of a loser, but told with a script that has little tension, directed with little flair and acted, for the most part, with a dull, steady cadence. A good deal of the dialogue and many of the actors are just competent. Still, if you're a Fuller fan, I Killed Jesse James may be worth watching. It's part of Criterion's Eclipse Series 5 - The First Films of Samuel Fuller. The set includes The Baron of Arizona and Steel Helmet.
Fuller, in my view, was not one of the great directors (or screenwriters; he usually wrote his own screenplays). He wasn't one of the great craftsmen, either. What he had was a tough, knock-about personal story, a confident willingness to dance to his own music, a streak of subversiveness that could undermine the fatuousness of Hollywood, the establishment and the nervous, and enough talent to take the commonplace material and actors he often was dealt and turn at least parts of his movies into something to admire. He was the kind of Hollywood non-Hollywood director that some cineastes and film critics adore. It would take a person wearing blinders, however, not to recognize that his movies are, at best, variable. Most of them don't hold up very well unless the viewer has been first captured by Sam Fuller's iconic anti-establishment reputation. Pickup on South Street is probably his best work, with fine performances by an A-level cast, an unusual script considering it was originally intended as an anti-Commie screed, and a story that Fuller keeps moving along. The Big Red One, highly praised by many, is an effective and realistic war movie dear to Fuller's heart. But it seems (to me) to go indulgently on and on and on.
For the rest of his movies, those that I've seen, there's just excellent bits and pieces mixed into a B-movie sensibility, awkward dialogue (almost any scenes involving a man and woman), and too much discursiveness. Fuller, in my opinion, needed a strong editor to work with and a strong writer with whom to collaborate. I have a feeling that Fuller would find either prospect completely unsatisfactory. Shock Corridor and The Naked Kiss, anointed by Criterion, for me aren't just pulp movies, they're almost embarrassing examples of overwrought pulp movies. This is all just opinion. Watch The Naked Kiss and see what you think.
But back to I Shot Jesse James. When Bob Ford (John Ireland) puts a bullet in the back of his friend, Jesse James, Ford hopes to gain amnesty and a large reward. He'd been befriended by James and had been part of James' gang. Ford wants to marry the love of his life, the singer Cynthy Waters (Barbara Britton). He thinks he can leave the criminal life and settle down with Cynthy. Instead she rejects him. He's called a coward and a backshooter. Most people hold him in contempt. He gets only a small part of the reward. He still thinks that if only he can make money he can win Cynthy. And there's that straight talking' guy who likes Cynthy, too, a man named John Kelley (Preston Foster, top billed) who keeps showing up. There's a showdown, and that's that.
John Ireland, in my view, had a lot of screen presence, but he needed a good script and strong direction to be at his best. Just watch him as Fantail in Raw Deal (1948), as Cherry Valance in Red River (1948) and as Jack Burden in All the King's Men (1949). Even in a piece of Brit noir schlock, The Glass Tomb (1955), he brings enough quality and interest to make it worth watching. Here, he's constrained by an uninspired script that gives him no opportunity to do anything but show what a sad sack loser Bob Ford is. But wait until that showdown. It only lasts a couple of minutes, but John Ireland shows what he can do.