The Steel Helmet (1951) - Directed by Samuel Fuller

Sam Fuller's career, a somewhat oddball mix of brutal violence, unsubtle drama, and social consciousness is one of the most fascinating to dissect. On one hand, his films have the tendency to appear low-budget almost to the point where continuity suffers. On the other hand, the extremely well-written scripts are rife with fascinating dialogue, characters and in many cases are socially progressive. The Steel Helmet, Fuller's first masterpiece, was a film that I had seen several years back during a retrospective on his career. Within a month's time in 2005, I saw all of these films for the first time: The Steel Helmet, Fixed Bayonets, Park Row, Underworld U.S.A., Shock Corridor, The Big Red One, and White Dog. I watched The Steel Helmet again this week and was reminded of why I love Fuller. It's the way that he blends his life experiences (War Veteran, Journalist) combined with an economy of storyline which is chock full of honesty, toughness, and strangely....a bit of sentiment. The Steel Helmet is an odd movie and one that could have only been made by its director. It is the work of a true auteur.

The Steel Helmet stars Gene Evans as Sergeant Zack. Zack's entire patrol has been wiped out by North Koreans and he is all alone, hands tied behind his back. A South Korean boy finds him and unties him. Zack reluctantly allows the boy to follow him as Zack attempts to find other American soldiers. The two of them come across a black American medic who has also lost his patrol. Together, the three of them meet up with a small American patrol and form a rag-tag bunch. They all find their way to a Buddhist temple where they attempt to hide out, thinking they are safe there. Things get interesting when they find out they are not alone. There is also a climactic battle scene at the temple where the small, outnumbered group tries to out-last some North Korean soldiers. 

One of the great joys of Sam Fuller's films, and this remained fairly consistent throughout his entire career, is the fact that his films were relatively low-budget affairs. To someone who takes these films out of context, I suppose they might appear a bit hokey. I find the low budget quality to be highly endearing. The scenes filmed in the forest during the night are clearly filmed on a set. It almost feels like you can see the back wall. The long shot of the Buddhist temple is clearly a painting. The final battle sequence is filled with lots of inconsistencies....too many to count really. Somehow none of this matters because the script is so good and filled with many socially relevent topics. After the team captures a North Korean, the black medic has a conversation with the Korean about being able to buy tickets on a bus back home, but not being able to sit in front. The Korean then talks to a Japanese-American soldier (who refers to himself as American) about derogatory terms like being called a Jap. Sergeant Zack calls the young boy a "Gook" and the young boy corrects him....causing Zack to hold his tongue the next time he tries to use the term. These moments make the film feel very alive and truthful. These are flawed characters...sometimes offputting....sometimes vengeful and angry, but they feel like real people. Fuller has a knack for how people talk, and his experiences during the war certainly were used to great effect in creating a realistic vibe among the soldiers. There's a great moment when Zack is talking to a bald soldier about why he has bottles of liquid on him. The bald soldier explains that he has bought hair tonic to try to make his hair grow because he lost all his hair when he was a kid from scarlet fever. The details of Fuller's script make this film shine. It's not the action I remember here....it's the interaction.

Another reason for why the film is essential is the magnificent performance by Gene Evans as Zack. Is there a more perfect actor to play a gruff, grizzled Sergeant than this guy? His stubbly beard and greasy, balding head are almost enough to make me accept him, but what takes it over the top is the fact that he is constantly chewing on a half-smoked cigar and talking and giving orders while still chewing on the thing. It is such a perfect accessory for his character. When the young Korean boy, that he somewhat adopts along the way as his son, is shot and killed toward the end, there's a brilliant moment where Zack walks toward the camera and his eyes are closed...his face clenched in anguish. It's as much feeling as he can express in a world dominated by violence and the unknown, and Fuller takes us into that moment and brings us face to face with the anguish of the soldier's grief. His other fantastic moment is the speech he gives to Lt. Driscoll, who has asked to swap helmets with him for good luck. It is the best moment in the film. 

Driscoll- I'd like to swap helmets with ya.

Zack- Oh yeah why?

Driscoll - Sounds a little silly, but I thought maybe if I wore your helmet, it would bring me the same kind of luck it brought you.

Zack- I’d be crossin’ the army if I brought you luck to live.

Driscoll- Sergeant I’ve-a, changed my mind about a lot of things in the past hour.

Zack- You’ll have to change more than your mind to get my steel pot.

Driscoll- You’re too dumb to be an officer so ya take it out on us. You’re a sorehead and you’re jealous. That’s why you hate any officer.

Zack- Look I’ll tell you about an officer…and he wadn’t a 90-day act of congress like you. He was a Colonel and he didn’t have to be that. It was D-day at Normandy. When you were wearin’ bars in the states and we were pinned down for 3 hours by Kraut fire... this Colonel, Colonel Taylor…he got up on easy red beach…and he yelled there are two kinds of men on this beach…those who were dead and those who were about to die. So let’s get off the beach and die in-land. That officer I’d give my steel hat to anyday.

Gene Evans was the perfect choice here for this role and also had another great performance in Fuller's Fixed Bayonets (1951). Fuller's portrayal of war is anti-heroic. There is no attempt to blockbuster-ize anything here. There are no glamorous set-pieces...nothing that glorifies the act of war nor those that fight in it. It is a humble, modest, and gritty war film about people trying to stay alive. 

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.