The Bigamist (1953) - Directed by Ida Lupino

Ida Lupino is one of the most fascinating figures in the history of cinema, breaking ground in numerous ways as basically the only female director working in Hollywood in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, she also wrote, produced and starred in numerous films, including her 1953 masterpiece, The Bigamist, in which she gives a brilliant performance. Her films, particularly this one, defy societal conventions, and in fact Hollywood conventions as well, dealing with themes and underlying issues in ways that are uniquely sensitive to feminine/masculine identity and sexuality and in fact the concept of marriage and career for both women and men. It’s hard to watch this film in a complete vacuum and take it in as it would have been seen in 1953. In fact it’s hard to turn off our understanding of the true second wave of feminism in the 1960s. But there are stepping stones created in this film and elements of feminism that are incorporated into the script effectively. True, the film is rather melodramatic, but it’s honest and sincerely told.

Edmund O’Brien gives a career best performance as Harry Graham, husband of Eve (Joan Fontaine), who is unable to conceive children. So they pursue the option of adopting a child after 8 years of marriage to each other. While the adoption agency worker, Mr. Jordan (Edmund Gwynn) looks into the background check process, he finds out many things about Harry…..in fact far more than he wishes to find out. Harry is in fact a traveling salesman for refrigerators in a business that is headed by his wife Eve, who quickly became a leading saleswoman in the business after she pursued a sales career once she realized she couldn’t have children. She in fact is deemed a “career woman” by her husband, and is actually better at her job than Harry is. Though their apartment is in San Francisco, Harry travels often to Los Angeles for work. While alone there and feeling restless, lonely, and depressed, he meets Phyllis (Ida Lupino) on a tour-bus ride. They strike up a friendship. Soon though, Harry begins to crave her attention and affection and begins to feel appreciated through her attentions. His wife Eve is often unresponsive to his feelings and needs. When Eve has to fly to Florida to care for her ailing father, Harry has significant time alone with Phyllis in L.A., where they have sex on his birthday. Phyllis knows nothing of Harry’s personal life, and when Harry learns that Phyllis is pregnant, his guilt and shame overcome him and he determines that he will have to divorce Eve to care for Phyllis and the child, but he doesn’t tell Phyllis this. Through circumstances beyond his control, he is unable to tell Eve, and thus begins a scenario where he becomes married to two women at the same time, leading a double life.

Several key themes come to the fore in this film. One is the against-the-grain characterization of Eve, by Joan Fontaine. Eve is a career woman, better at her job than her husband, and who in fact we suspect makes more money than her husband does. She is satisfied by her work, and in fact pays little attention to her husband's emotional needs, even though she's not really that insensitive by nature....it's just that she is trusting and is rather "un-clingy". Harry is the disenchanted, lovelorn husband, emasculated, flighty, depressed, emotional, and rather unstable. In fact, their roles can be positioned as the opposite stereotypes of male/female roles, particularly in traditional social and cinematic values. When Harry wanders to Phyllis, we listen to his internal monologue as he explains why he does what he does out of need to connect emotionally and spiritually to another human as his needs have become unfulfilled by his wife. His sensitive and emotional needs are quite a stark de-masculinization of male gender values, and particularly enhanced by O’Brien’s effectiveness in the role. Joan Fontaine is fabulously believable as the career woman, shunning her traditional duties of domestication and female subservience. Ida Lupino is equally impressive as Phyllis, seeking companionship but not demanding anything from Harry, pursuing HIM when in fact he wants to break off the relationship and refrain from sex. Yet she's a good woman at heart and really is doing nothing wrong. Their sexual encounter is subtly hinted at when he tells her “I have to return home tomorrow.” She says, “Tomorrow is a long way off.” When her pregnancy is made known, it is of particular interest that she has made no intention of finding Harry to tell him and is ready to care for the child on her own as a single mother.

Lupino’s direction is often raw, and unpolished, but is remarkably honest in its emotional clarity, providing moments for each character to be deeply felt by the audience. Tendencies for melodramatic elements are keyed by circumstances which aren’t just believable, they’re remarkably simple and understandable. When the moment comes when Harry feels the need to confess to Eve, we understand his lack of will when he realizes her father has passed away. The bad timing continues, and he’s never quite able to tell her. It’s not that we sympathize with him…it’s just that we understand HOW such a thing could happen. His manipulation of the situation is enhanced by the circumstances which allow for the deceit to continue. It’s a remarkably balanced script by Collier Young, who was in fact married to Fontaine at the time, and was previously married to Lupino, adding an interesting layer to the background of this film. The love triangle of sorts is also fascinating in that we do believe that Harry loves both women and the film ends on an appropriately ambiguous note. True, though the film asks more questions than it answers (and probably couldn’t go quite as far as a film made in the late 1960’s could go) regarding the elements of gender reversal, the honest approach to female sexuality, career, motherhood, marriage, and the terrific love story at the core of the film make this film a must see and a unique slice of the 1950’s for a pioneering woman in the field of cinema. Whether you like the film or not may depend on your sensitivity to melodrama..... but if Sirk, Fassbinder, and Almodovar can be praised for their melodramas, so can Lupino. If not, then it's a double standard that needs to be corrected.

Nobody's Children (1952) / The White Angel (1955) - Directed by Raffaello Matarazzo

Although his films in the late 1940’s were popular hits in his own country of Italy, Raffaello Matarazzo has resided at the fringe of popularity with critics ever since his melodramas were released. His films, of course, completely clashed with the neo-realism movement so prevalent in Italy at the time, but were popular escapist films. Instead of social relevancy and voicing the cry of the impoverished nation, Matarazzo’s films often used social plights to enhance fantasies. In fact, these films are filled with the kind of melodramatic and fantastical flair that Douglas Sirk would develop in Hollywood. In comparison though, Matarazzo makes Sirk look conservative by a long stretch. Criterion’s recent release on their Eclipse label captures four enchanting and thrilling features from Matarazzo, bringing to light the work of a fascinating director, one ready for a discovery.

Two films from the release, Nobody’s Children (1952) and the sequel The White Angel (1955) are together one of the wildest melodramatic stories ever put on film. They are labyrinthine in their approach, loaded with extreme examples of melodramatic panache. In the first film, Nobody’s Children, we’re introduced to a couple in love, Guido (Amadeo Nazzari), a Count and owner of a quarry, and Luisa (Yvonne Sanson). Guido leaves the country for a period of time, promising to write to her. In the meantime, she is pregnant with his child, which he does not know. His letters get stolen by Anselmo, a scheming rival, and his mother in order to push Luisa, a girl from a poor family, out of the picture. Guido returns and thinks Luisa has left him. Luisa feels she has been abandoned by Guido, and thus they are separated…..forever?



In the sequel, The White Angel, our separated lovers have, perhaps, a chance encounter at a train station, where Guido finds a woman who looks just like Luisa, and a la Vertigo (1958) (made 3 years later), becomes obsessed with her, pursues her, woos her, and….I must stop. It’s just too delicious to give away. In both films, there is a sense of suffering for righteous reasons. Thus, it’s clear that Catholicism perhaps plays a deep-rooted role at the core of these films, and this Christ-like suffering for the greater good is rampant, lending the films a passionate sense of duty. One wonders if the films of Bresson hold nothing less than an affinity with the elemental sense of duty and determination that Matarazzo lends to his characters. Bresson of course drained far more emotion from that purpose than Matarazzo does, but there is a kinship somewhere deep inside.

Both films star Amadeo Nazzari and Yvonne Sanson, who give prescient, if not always restrained performances. However, they seem to embody the clairvoyant religious and symbolic intentions that Matarazzo wants to convey. In viewing these two films, there also appears to be a grand celestial alignment at play in the plot, a design of life if you will that is evidenced by the cosmic connections and coincidences that occur. Although on the surface melodramas like this can appear campy and trashy, I believe that there is a greater truth and substance to the cores of films like Matarazzo’s. This leaning toward the cosmic alignment beckons comparisons to another late, great filmmaker, Krzysztof Kieslowski. Films like The Double Life of Veronique (1991), or his Three Colors Trilogy (1993-1995) are built upon a framework of coincidences, grand connections, and a reliance upon the magic of chance, or perhaps, God-like intervention. I’ll be damned if Matarazzo didn’t feel a similar pull when he made his grand works. Check out any of Matarazzo’s films you can get your hands on, but especially the twin bill of Nobody’s Children and The White Angel. They are literally loaded with magic.

Senso (1954) - Directed by Luchino Visconti

At one time forgotten and now ripe for a rediscovery following the recent Criterion release, Luchino Visconti’s Senso is nothing but a non-stop pummeling of gorgeous costumes and sets, wonderful acting, and deeply tragic emotions. This masterpiece is a luscious and most operatic melodrama. I’ve already mentioned my grand appreciation of melodramas in previous essays about Sirk, Fuller, and Cukor. Now we enter the realm of classicism and grand perspective, lending a historical context to a torrid love affair, one which is not only tragically romantic but insatiably lusty, filled with greed, unhealthy yearnings, hang-ups and obsessions.

Alida Valli stars as Countess Livia Serpieri, who is married to a wealthy and stodgy man. It is 1866, and the seeds of Italian unification have begun to surge through the country during the Austrian occupation. Visconti’s film opens with an extended scene in the Teatro La Fenice (Opera House) in Venice, infusing the film with a heavy dose of gilded atmospherics, and foreshadowing the “Opera” that will play out during the course of the film. At the Opera, Livia meets Franz Mahler, an Austrian lieutenant played by Farley Granger. They are immediately smitten with each other, and under the nose of her husband, Livia begins a lustful, reckless and selfish affair with him, one that will ultimately break her body, mind, and soul.

As Countess Livia, Alida Valli gives a tremendous performance and is one of the main reasons for the film’s success. Her dark features and long hair blend terrifically with the gorgeous costumes that were fitted for her, along with the ornately decorated rooms she spends time in. Her projection of longing and tortured melancholy is reminiscent of her work in The Third Man (1949), but here she’s given more screen time and she’s a commanding presence. Her chemistry with Farley Granger really works, especially in the passionate love scenes she has together with him that seem especially heated considering the time in which the film was made. It’s also quite clear that the look of the film, from the sets and costumes to the careful use of color, darkness and light, is a tremendous testament to Visconti’s vision. At around the time of this film's release, Visconti became known for his direction of Operas, something he did throughout the 1950's and 60's. It’s clear that his love of Opera infuses Senso with the emotional flourishes and cinematic framing that makes it so memorable.

As Livia and Franz reach a climactic moment in their relationship, the film ratchets up a darker, more tortured conclusion than something that would be found in the films of Sirk. Visconti knows that an affair of such epic proportions is bound to destroy someone in the end, if not everyone involved. The film’s most memorable moment for me comes very near the last scene, as a distraught, perhaps insane Livia wanders the dark and shadowy streets of Verona, screaming “Franz!”, “Fraannz!!!.” She screams his name with such blood curdling passion, the words echoing off the walls of the buildings, bringing chills to one’s spine. Senso is my favorite Visconti film, containing one of the most torrid and tragic love affairs that cinema has ever brought us.

My 2011 Recap

I'm calling this post My 2011 Recap, as that's what it is. It's not a Best Films of 2011 as I still haven't seen all the new movies I would need to summarize the year in movies, and may not get there for a few months. However, I did want to take some time to do something inspired by Drew’s great post over at The Blue Vial, which is to highlight (out of the over 250 films I saw, with the vast majority of them older releases) several older films that I saw for the first time in 2011 that struck the biggest chord with me, and then also add some other thoughts on my other discoveries throughout the year. Reminder: all the films and performances I highlight in this post were films I saw for the first time.

So, these are the 9 runners-up best pre-2011 films in chronological order:

Magnificent Obsession (1954) – Sirk

Bigger Than Life (1956) – Ray

Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) – Wise

Kapo (1959) – Pontecorvo

The Naked Kiss (1964) – Fuller

Love Affair, or The Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator (1967) – Makavejev

Shadows in Paradise (1986) – Kaurismaki

Close-Up (1990) - Kiarostami

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) – Dominik

And the single greatest film that I saw from all the pre-2011 releases was:

4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (2007) – Cristian Mungiu

This Romanian film, set during Ceausescu’s reign and about an attempted illegal abortion, was something I watched early in 2011, prior to blogging in March and I didn’t write a piece on it at the time. I hope to correct this in the future after a second viewing. This film approached perfection for me and is a film I’m still grappling with 10 months later.

On the flipside, here are a few renowned films that I, for whatever reason, did not connect with:

Chungking Express (1994) – Kar-Wai

Eraserhead (1977) – Lynch

The Conformist (1970) – Bertolucci

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) - Akerman

Here is a list of the best performances I saw this year:

Best Actress:

Anamaria Marinca – 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (2007) – Mungiu

Michelle Williams – Wendy and Lucy (2008) – Reichardt,Blue Valentine (2010) – Cianfrance

Constance Towers – The Naked Kiss (1964) – Fuller

Kati Outinen – The Match Factory Girl (1990) – Kaurismaki

Allida Valli – Senso (1954) – Visconti

Holly Hunter – Broadcast News (1987) – Brooks

Wendy Hiller – Major Barbara (1941) – Pascal

Barbra Streisand – Funny Girl (1968) – Cukor

Best Actor:

Micky Rourke – The Wrestler (2008) – Aronofsky


Casey Affleck – The Assassination of Jesse James… (2007) – Dominick

Emil Jannings – The Last Command (1928) – Von Sternberg

Robert Ryan – Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) – Wise



Lino Ventura – Le Deuxieme Souffle (1966) – Melville

Hossein Sabzian – Close-Up (1990) – Kiarostami

Volker Spengler – In A Year of 13 Moons (1978) – Fassbinder

James Mason - Bigger Than Life (1956) - Ray

Director I spent the most time with in 2011:

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

I had seen a few of this German director’s films prior to this year, like Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1973) and The Marriage of Maria Braun (1978), but had begun to realize that one of my largest gaps in my viewing knowledge of film was Fassbinder’s output. These were the 6 films that I saw by Fassbinder this year. (ratings are out of 4 stars)

Effi Briest (1974) - Fassbinder ***

Fox and His Friends (1975) - Fassbinder *** 1/2

In a Year with 13 Moons (1978) - Fassbinder *** 1/2

Lola (1981) - Fassbinder *** 1/2

The American Soldier (1970) - Fassbinder ** 1/2

The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant (1972) - Fassbinder *** 1/2

One of the oddest things about Fassbinder’s output is the fact that his films for me are nearly always on the cusp of masterpiece status, but he has a tendency to somewhat undermine his own brilliance by throwing in an element or a few scenes that just don’t really work for me, almost on purpose maybe? It’s an oddity that I haven’t quite figured out yet, but I feel like there is more to it, because he was clearly capable of brilliance. I still think Maria Braun is his best film and I still need to see Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) among others. After seeing the six films I did, though, I feel more capable of discussing his work with a shred of intelligence. Among Fassbinder’s greatest auteurist elements I have found, is the fact that many of his stories revolve around the tendency of a certain character to try to destroy another character through love, lack of love, manipulation, or brutality. His stories nearly always couple melodrama with a certain social realism aspect.

Genre Explorations:

Musicals! As I noted here following my involvement in the Wonders in the Dark Top 70 Musicals Countdown, I spent a great deal of time catching up with both my favorite musicals and many I had never seen before. Over 10% of my total viewing in 2011 was spent watching musicals, 28 films in all.  I now believe to have a much greater appreciation of musicals and consider myself a big fan of the genre.

Some of my new favorites:

On the Town (1949)

Fiddler on the Roof (1971)

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Funny Girl (1968)

In a somewhat related topic, over the last year, I’ve become a huge fan and proponent of artful melodrama. For whatever reason, the films that I saw from Sirk, Fassbinder, Fuller, Ray, Matarazzo, Visconti, Ophuls and many of the musicals themselves spoke to me from their melodramatic elements.

These were the glories of melodrama for me that I watched in 2011:

(Note that some of these films will see essays from me in the coming weeks)

Magnificent Obsession (1954) – Sirk

Nobody’s Children (1952)/The White Angel (1955) – Matarrazzo

Bigger Than Life (1956) - Ray

The Naked Kiss (1964) – Fuller

Senso (1954) – Visconti



Lola (1981) – Fassbinder

The Earrings of Madame de… (1953) – Ophuls

That’s basically my summary of my 2011 watching movies. Like I said, I hope to have a best films of 2011 in the future to post on after I catch up with the new releases, but in the meantime, if you have a favorite older film you saw this year please share!

Magnificent Obsession (1954) - Directed by Douglas Sirk

Douglas Sirk’s melodramas are elegant and precise films that appeal directly to the audience’s emotions, featuring wildly entertaining stories that contain improbable circumstances that have you wondering whether you should smirk and laugh at the events taking place. But….and this is the genius of it…. in that split instance before you laugh, you realize you are already invested in this story. You also realize you like, even love the characters you are watching and you are wrapped up cozily in a Technicolor dream world, one in which you really don’t want to leave. So instead of laughing at the moment, you become filled with childlike innocence and you grab your blankie, curl yourself up and become even more absorbed. You are totally entranced and you can’t help it. You completely submit to the charm and you worship at the alter of melodrama and Douglas Sirk, embracing the wild swings in plot and emotion and are begging for more, more, more.

Okay so maybe I exaggerate a bit, but not by much. I don’t know if any director leaped so headlong into true and classic melodrama as Douglas Sirk, embracing it both as glorious entertainment and artistic expression. He is truly the Godfather of Melodrama and all those after him who utilized it - Fuller, Fassbinder, Almodovar – owed him gratitude and in many cases, made direct homage to his work. Magnificent Obsession is Douglas Sirk’s first great foray into melodrama. He would follow it with more artistically and thematically ambitious films, like All That Heaven Allows (1955), but I think this one ranks up there among the best of his work, if for nothing other than the script itself. It's easily the wildest plot that Sirk ever filmed. I don’t even want to go into the plot much because part of the real fun of the film is not knowing what will happen next. To set up the story, playboy Bob Merrick (Rock Hudson) wrecks his boat and needs to be resuscitated with the only resuscitator machine in town. It so happens that Dr. Phillips, who is loaning the equipment, has a heart attack the same day, and dies, probably because the resuscitator was not available. Enter Helen (Jane Wyman), Dr. Philips’ widow, who crosses paths with Bob Merrick and they soon become linked together, as Bob tries to somehow repay her for the grief he has seemingly caused.

Rock Hudson’s character Bob Merrick is fascinating in that we’re never sure exactly why he feels so compelled to repay Helen and make things up to her, and ultimately lots of other people as well. Is it for love? He seems to be able to get whatever girl he wants with the money he has and those looks, so that wouldn’t seem to be a problem for him. Is it to clear a guilty conscience? This option is quite likely although we’re never really convinced that he’s ever felt guilty about anything in his whole life. He meets up with an Edward Randolph (Otto Kruger), an artist, who becomes a sort of angel-like mentor to him, dispensing advice, caring for him after a night of drinking. This old guy convinces him that doing good and repaying others, without asking for anything in return, creates a Karma of sorts that can be addicting. It seems it’s more this latter option, that Merrick embarks down a path of doing good and cannot stop, that makes the most sense. He seems like the obsessive type, and this giving to others becomes his new impulsive obsession, and we see this type of impulsiveness play itself out in the film at other times as well. Hudson's counterpart, Jane Wyman, was never the most beautiful of actresses. She is good at playing the wholesome, honest, average woman type. Here this comes to great fruition in that we believe her and the actions that she takes in the film because she’s not too glamorous, giving her credibility in this convincing role, necessary for a melodrama of this stature. We have to believe her because the film rides on her ability to convey and project an inner calm and goodness. It should also be mentioned that Barbara Rush gives an incredible performance as Joyce, Helen's stepdaughter. She's as emotional and as fiery as it gets and provides a good contrast to Wyman's stoic poise.

Sirk’s melodramas never feel like reality to me. I think that’s why they succeed so much. There’s no hiding the fact that the stories take place in their own movie world, devoid of apparent realism for the most part, despite the fact that they highlight prejudices and repression in some of his films. The glossiness of the films only superficially covers over the underlying themes. But beneath the gloss you can see truth. This camouflage allows Sirk the ability to not hold back. You can’t go half way with a melodrama, otherwise it comes across as contrived. When you sell it 100% and don’t pretend you’re trying to be something else, it really works. Taken as a whole, Magnificent Obsession requires some leaps of faith, but the leaps come in several smaller increments so that by the time you would question the reality of what you’re seeing, you’re already so invested and love the film.  As I mentioned, Sirk would become more ambitious in All That Heaven Allows (1955) and Imitation of Life (1959) regarding themes. But, Magnificent Obsession is a glorious entertainment in its own right and a worthy introduction to Sirk’s films.

The Naked Kiss (1964) - Directed by Samuel Fuller



Elevating what could have been pure cheese into high art, Samuel Fuller's The Naked Kiss is a pulp-fiction melodrama of the best kind. Fuller's personal brand of gritty, gutsy and overt filmmaking here is in full effect. It's in-your-face, confrontational, and gloriously sappy. We're introduced to our heroine, Kelly, played by Constance Towers, in a well-composed opening sequence of violence. She's swinging madly at her pimp with her purse, the camera lurching and swinging in unison and we, the audience are also jarred by the bald image of her head. After beating him up and taking her hard-earned cash, she gets in front of the mirror and proceeds to put on her wig as if none of this has phased her one bit. Kelly, trying to give up prostitution, moves to a small town and doesn't take long to "befriend" the local cop. She rents a room in a house and gets a job as a medical assistant caring for children at the local hospital and begins to feel like her past is getting further behind her. At the hospital she becomes a local saint of sorts, caring for the children, teaching them life lessons, helping out the other nurses with their personal problems, saving a woman from going down a wayward path. She even meets a well-off man named J. L. Grant, relation to the town's founder, and decides to marry him after a short but intense courtship. Of course, not is all as it appears. Dark secrets are lurking in the shadows of this iconic mainstreet USA.

Fuller and cinematographer Stanley Cortez make great use of shadow and light, bringing contrast to many scenes to heighten the tension and somehow making most sets appear ominous, enhancing the fact that Kelly can never quite escape her past, that things are lurking in the corners. Fuller's oeuvre included film noir, and he incorporates those types of visual flourishes in The Naked Kiss. Fuller was a war veteran and former crime reporter, so he was personally aware of the extremes of human drama. He continually exerted a unique worldview on his films where he gave voice to outsiders, highlighted social issues and hypocrisy through controversial themes, and even tackled racism head-on in Crimson Kimono (1959) and especially White Dog (1982). I've always been fascinated with Fuller's films and consider him a true auteur and master director. His films were always low-budget looking, but filled with personal and intense filmmaking that gave the films an edge. Several visual flourishes really work here, like the opening sequence I mentioned, an imagined gondola ride through Venice, and even a musical number involving the children at the hospital which maintains a restrained balance between the maudlin and the sincere. In The Naked Kiss, the subject matter in the hands of another director could have turned laughable, but Fuller's sense of balance and contrast keeps the film from going too far.

Melodrama when done right can be very entertaining. Sometimes it's talked about in mostly negative terms, but when utilized by a director who understands its impact, it can be used to highlight hypocrisy, challenge repressive ways of thinking, or to heighten emotion beyond that which can be accomplished through realism. Douglas Sirk's films like All That Heaven Allows (1955) are a perfect example of melodrama done artfully and classically. Rainer Werner Fassbinder was another director who utilized melodrama, albeit with a tinge more realism in films like Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974). Pedro Almodovar has fully embraced melodrama throughout his career and was most successful in Talk to Her (2002). Fuller takes this type of melodrama to the extremes of taste though by examining the personal life of a prostitute, making her into a heroine of Frank Capra-esque proportions, flaunting conventions and challenging the audience to hold its prejudices at the door.

Constance Towers has a difficult role to play in this film. She's got to be melodramatic, but make us believe we should actually care about her. She's also alternately sweet and vicious, turning on a dime and capable of swift, brutal violence and justice. She cares for the physically impaired children in one scene and beats a brothel owner in another and somehow makes both extremes believable for this character. I think Fuller's script is filled with hammy moments at times, but Towers always comes out looking empowered and in control, never like she's forcing it. In the final 30 minutes of the film, the story takes a surprising and well-timed turn, bringing everything in the plot to a completeness that could not have been accomplished in another way. Sam Fuller manages to always surprise the audience with an honesty and openness that are still refreshing today. His films hold up remarkably well and his influence can still be seen in the films of Quentin Tarantino among others. The Naked Kiss is a supreme example of the power of Fuller's filmmaking.