sAmUEl FUllER AT COlUmBiA, 1937–1961

7/10 Seven of the maverick writer’s stories, boxed. By Alastair McKay

In an interview with Tim Robbins (included here) Samuel Fuller talks about the things he learned as a newspaperman. He started as a copy boy on the New York Journal at the age of 12, graduating to a job as a crime reporter by the age of 17 on the New York Evening Graphic (a paper known as the “porno graphic”, on account of its lurid sensibilities). “He told me, ‘one thing I learned early on is: everybody’s lying…,’” says Robbins. “Everybody has their own perception, none of it’s true. The mother of the suspect tells a story that is completely different from the mother of the victim.” The moral of this tale? “Don’t trust anybody.” And, suggests Robbins, to be a reporter, you have to take all the competing perceptions and create a story that has its own truth.

Fuller’s career, like his life, is shot through with journalism and war. Always more appreciated in France than the US, by the end of his career he was known for cameo appearances, and his influence on godard, Spielberg, Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino. He didn’t hold his early work in high regard, and much of it came in the form of B-pictures in which originality is sacrificed to generic bluntness. But Fuller, a tabloid man, was quite capable of making an impact within those chalk-lines. The highlight here is Underworld Usa from 1961, an extraordinary tale of criminal vengeance played out in the shadows. Tolly (Cliff Robertson) is a man with a lifelong vendetta, seeking vengeance for the murder of his father. Visually and verbally, it’s a beauty (full of talk of bum hearts and joy powder), and notable also for the way the criminals are viewed as just another business. “Almost every shot hits you like a punch,” is martin Scorsese’s verdict. Power of the Press (1943; directed by Lew Landers from a Fuller story) includes an editor battling to rid his paper of “fake news” – the phrase is used – and serves as a pointer to where Fuller’s energies would go. scandal sheet (1952) began as Fuller’s story The Dark Page, a mystery in which the killer is a city editor. the

Crimson Kimono (1959) toys unpredictably with racism against a backdrop of LA sleaze. In the faintly Capra-esque it happened

in hollywood, a silent film star struggles to adapt to the advent of talkies, while the French Foreign Legion caper adventure in

sahara is hampered by racial stereotyping. shockproof (1949) was the last Fuller story before he set out as a director. Directed by Douglas Sirk, it eschews Fuller’s ending in favour of an unhappy compromise between film noir and melodrama.

Extras: 8/10. outtakes, masterclass, interviews, trailers, documentaries, essays.