The Lippert Years, 1948–1951
Fuller began directing films at the end of the 1940s, when the structure of the studio system underwent a seismic shift. After 1946, decreasing theater attendance and skyrocketing production costs eroded profits for the studios, while the 1948 Paramount antitrust decision altered distribution practices and divorced the exhibition arms of the major studios from their production and distribution wings. In an effort to cut costs, the major and minor studios made fewer films, shedding their low-budget B units and funneling available money into high-profile blockbusters, a trend already underway from the early 1940s. The reduction in the number of released films threatened to starve exhibitors, especially those who maintained double-bill screenings and frequently changed their schedules. In response, small, low-budget studios rushed to fill the empty screens vacated by the major and minor studios with genre-oriented action fare.
The low-budget studios were just as hungry for talent as the majors, and the success of Fuller’s novel The Dark Page soon attracted the notice of Robert Lippert, a West Coast exhibitor and independent producer. Lippert owned Lippert Productions, Inc., a low-budget production unit, and was the president of Lippert Pictures, Inc., a distribution outfit that grew out of Screen Guild Productions in 1949. Lippert released mainly sixty- to sixty-five-minute B westerns and genre pictures destined for the second half of a double bill. The company’s motto was: “You get action from Lippert Pictures!” During its early years, Lippert films were generally produced for $75,000 to $100,000 and financed through cash advances from Lippert franchise-holders.1 In addition to abbreviated running times and limited budgets, Lippert films contained other qualities of B pictures made by lesser studios: no stars and shooting schedules of three or fewer weeks.
With an eye toward investing in higher-budget production, Lippert was on the lookout for writers and directors who could put over a spectacular story with speed and efficiency, and he found such talent in Fuller. Eager to direct his own work after over a decade of writing scenarios and scripts for others, Fuller agreed to both write and direct his first Lippert film, I Shot Jesse James, for minimum pay.2 Lippert gained a screenwriter experienced in action genres and insured himself against Fuller’s directorial inexperience by pairing him with producer Carl K. Hittleman, a veteran of budget westerns and adventure stories; for his part, Fuller finally had a shot at directing his own scripts. All three of his Lippert films were among the company’s most expensive to produce and were designed to be distributed as either headliners or supporting features. Their limited budgets insured a profit if any of them were a hit, and on his third try, The Steel Helmet, Fuller hit it big.
Working for Lippert offered Fuller an opportunity to experiment with visual storytelling in a relatively low-risk environment while retaining maximum production control. I Shot Jesse James and The Baron of Arizona find him developing the obsessive characters, contradictory desires, and themes of deception and betrayal that are central to so many of his pictures, while adopting a range of stylistic strategies that combine production efficiency with emotional impact. The strengths and weaknesses of these two pictures prepare Fuller for The Steel Helmet, his first film to express a distinct aesthetic in a unified and coherent fashion. Multiple lines of conflict, sudden shifts in tone, and use of irony emerge as primary narrative characteristics, tools that upend viewer expectations in the service of entertainment and revelation. On the stylistic level, Fuller experiments with both extended master shots and montage editing, seeking a variety of strategies to heighten the physical and emotional impact of his images. While Fuller’s limited resources at Lippert certainly affected what he was able to achieve visually, the artistic freedom he enjoyed allowed him to develop the aesthetic instincts he would favor throughout the rest of his career.
The Marketplace for Low-Budget Films
The low-budget B picture was the bread and butter of Hollywood during the height of the studio system, produced both by major studios to maximize the use of their equipment and personnel and by smaller Poverty Row studios as their sole product. B pictures featured lower budgets, shorter shooting schedules, less established actors, and briefer running times than A pictures and typically played the bottom half of a double bill.3 The status of a B picture was determined not only by production factors, but also by distribution and exhibition, and sometimes a film could move between the A and B designation. Unlike A pictures, Bs were distributed for a flat fee, allowing studios to calculate their return precisely and to budget their production costs to insure profitability. Because Bs had limited selling potential, their distribution was not as coordinated as that of As, nor was it supported by national advertising campaigns or widespread press coverage. Instead, distributors tapped Bs when and where they needed them to fill out a double bill, resulting in a more random release pattern often to smaller theaters over the course of several months to several years.4 Box office and critical response could shift a film’s designation, however, as successful Bs might be promoted to the top of the bills at better houses, while failing As might be relegated to diffused distribution as supporting features.
As B pictures were made by studios with a wide range of available resources, their characteristics varied dramatically. The most prestigious low-budget films were programmers, also known as “in-betweeners” due to their status in between the high-gloss A and the quick-and-dirty B. Programmers shared aspects of both As and Bs, featuring higher-paid actors, larger budgets and shooting schedules, and longer running times than the average B, but still lacked the prestige and high-gloss production values of the full-blown A. The major studios dominated the in-betweener category during the 1930s, but by the 1950s lesser studios increasingly initiated programmer production. Programmers had the flexibility to play either half of a double feature depending on the theater and program and could be supported by national publicity campaigns or receive general press coverage. Brian Taves notes that market conditions often made the programmer a risky venture, however. While a hit programmer stood to make a tidy profit due to its lower budget than most As, a less successful programmer could fail to make back its costs if it quickly disappeared from the A market or was exhibited primarily as a B.5 Successful programmers thus had to sell themselves like As—using stars, brand names, genre appeal, or gimmicks—while still featuring budgets closer to Bs.
While exhibitors’ embrace of the double bill during the 1930s spurred the growth of B pictures and programmers, the studios’ movement away from mass production during the 1940s and 1950s threatened the survival of low-budget films and left exhibitors wanting. The divorcement from studio theaters relieved the majors of the need to produce large numbers of films to fill yearly programs and maintain efficiency. As the major and minor producers cut back on lower-budgeted production in the 1940s and early 1950s, smaller outfits such as Republic and Allied Artists, which previously cranked out Bs, followed their lead and also turned to more expensive productions.6 Exhibitors found themselves with both fewer people coming in the door and less product to put up on the screen.
The double-bill policy that remained standard in 70 percent of U.S. theaters even through the 1950s made the film shortage particularly acute.7 The loss of B pictures especially hurt smaller independent and neighborhood theaters that changed lineups more frequently and relied on programmers and B pictures to fill in the schedule between major releases. Smaller houses were loath to abandon double bills due to their popularity with the segment of the audience that exhibitors most wanted to attract: young people. Smaller, indoor exhibitors’ need for product was also shared by the drive-ins. According to the Journal of Property Management, many drive-ins changed their schedules three times a week in 1953—like the neighborhood theaters—and incorporated both first-class pictures and action films.8 In addition, drive-ins were “the temple of the double feature,” and outdoor owners supported the continuation of double bills into the 1960s, even as other exhibitors called for their elimination.9 Small, independent movie houses, drive-ins, and first-run theaters that maintained a double-bill policy thus formed the primary market for low-budget films when Fuller began his directorial career with Lippert. Fuller’s deal with Lippert aligned him with an established, low-budget studio at a time when demand for its action-oriented B pictures and programmers remained strong. The rest was up to him.
Although hampered by limited budgets and speedy shooting schedules, as well as by genre expectations that he did not always fully embrace, Fuller found at Lippert an opportunity to develop as a director and to gain increasing control over his screenplays. The success of I Shot Jesse James, described by the Motion Picture Herald as “the sleeper of the year,” prompted Lippert to sign Fuller to a three-picture contract, granting him script approval and cash plus participation in profits.10 While disappointed by the response to The Baron of Arizona, his second, more ambitious feature for Lippert, Fuller negotiated producer status for his third, The Steel Helmet, as well as a third of the profits and final say on the film’s screenplay, direction, and editing.11 With The Steel Helmet, Fuller was particularly proud of his tight control over production, boasting before the film’s release, “Lippert never even read the script or saw the picture until it was previewed.”12
With just three films, Fuller managed to become a writer-director-producer and to receive profit participation, a sort of deal usually reserved for much more experienced directors like Hitchcock and Hawks who worked for major studios and top independent producers. To Fuller’s advantage, he was in the right place at the right time: Lippert was looking to expand slowly into higher-budget programmers, and once Fuller had proven himself, Lippert’s offer of greater control and financial compensation temporarily kept Fuller from defecting to a larger studio.13 The Lippert years turned out to be a golden era for Fuller, a time when he could pursue his interests and try new ideas while facing limited risks and exposure. As was true throughout his career, he made the most of the opportunity he was given.
Early Experiments: I Shot Jesse James and The Baron of Arizona
I Shot Jesse James emerged out of Fuller’s interest in assassins and in what motivates a man to kill someone he loves. Although he first pitched Lippert the story of Cassius, the Roman senator who plotted to murder Julius Caesar, Lippert warmed more quickly to the tale of Robert Ford, the James gang member who killed Jesse with a shot to the back.14 Ford’s story placed Fuller’s first Lippert picture squarely in the genre most associated with the studio, promised enough gunplay to please action fans, and enabled exploitation of the outlaw’s legendary name. Budgeted around $110,000 and filmed in approximately ten days, I Shot Jesse James starred character actors John Ireland, Preston Foster, and Barbara Britton. Part of Lippert’s bid to expand into programmer production, it cost more and ran twenty minutes longer than most Lippert westerns.15 With its name-brand title, recognizable actors, higher production values, and longer running time, I Shot Jesse James contained the potential to play in first-run houses on the top of a double bill. More significantly for Fuller, the film’s emotionally charged narrative provided suitable opportunities to experiment with visual storytelling.
I Shot Jesse James centers on the motivation for—and effects of—Bob Ford’s betrayal of Jesse James. It opens with Fuller’s calling card, a beautifully choreographed James Gang bank robbery, after which Bob (Ireland) loses all the loot and Jesse (Reed Hadley) saves his life. While the gang is in hiding, Bob learns of an amnesty that is offered by the governor to anyone who turns Jesse in, dead or alive, and visits the actress he loves, Cynthy (Britton). Cynthy declares that she wants them to marry and settle down on a farm, but Bob knows that if he turns himself in, he faces lengthy jail time. He concludes that the only way to marry his sweetheart is to kill Jesse, his closest friend, thus gaining amnesty for his crimes, but his obsession with Cynthy prevents him from anticipating the consequences of his actions. Cynthy’s love turns to hate once she learns of Bob’s betrayal, and Bob is haunted in his mind and in public by the cowardly murder. When an honorable marshal (Foster) emerges as a rival for Cynthy’s affections, Bob blames him for Cynthy’s change of heart, forcing him into a standoff that leads to Bob’s death. With his dying breath, Bob tells Cynthy that he’s sorry for what he did and that he loved Jesse.
While Lippert sold I Shot Jesse James as a western, the film does not engage with generic conventions so much as use them to explore Fuller’s own narrative and stylistic interests. The characters, settings, iconography, and situations typical of westerns are all here: dance-hall girls, marshals, and outlaws; saloons and clapboard Main Streets; guns, horses, and cowboy hats; and bank robberies, fistfights, and shootouts. Yet these generic indicators function primarily as narrative devices, efficiently sketching the relationships between characters and their world and conveniently providing motivation for plot points. Fuller demonstrates no interest in exploring the conflict between the “untamed” world and the “civilized” world that is at the heart of the western genre, nor in grappling with the mythic status of Jesse James in particular or of the outlaw-hero in general. Jesse James could just as easily have been Julius Caesar. What excites Fuller is the psychology of his assassin and how Bob Ford’s love of Cynthy drives him to betray and murder Jesse, whom he also loves. The film’s narrative structure highlights the irony of Bob’s situation: Jesse’s death can help Bob marry Cynthy, but murdering Jesse kills Cynthy’s love for Bob. I Shot Jesse James thus introduces themes that will become hallmarks of the Fuller film: as with a love that leads to violence, truth is often contradictory and absurd.
The irrationality of Bob’s emotions and his obsessive fixation on marrying Cynthy propel the story forward, even as digressive subplots threaten to diffuse the film’s narrative focus. Fuller fully immerses the viewer in Bob’s subjectivity, using dialogue to externalize his thoughts and feelings; Bob’s self-interest is so total that even his conversations come across as monologues. Ireland plays Bob as a love-struck dreamer, childishly blind to all but his own desire, making him appear more pathetic than villainous. The actor adopts languid, feline poses, and his line readings, expressions, and movement physicalize his character’s slow-witted single-mindedness. The effect is entrancing, and while viewers are unlikely to identify with Robert Ford—he has few redeeming qualities—Fuller’s script and Ireland’s performance enable us to understand him and to pity him.
Narrative and style work together in I Shot Jesse James both to provide viewers with subjective access to Bob’s thoughts and feelings and to distance us from his pain, producing competing kinds of emotional engagement with the protagonist. One memorable example occurs during the first act after Bob makes the decision to kill Jesse, when sudden tonal shifts emphasize both Bob’s hesitation to strike and the comedic irony of his situation. Following Bob’s declaration that “nothing’s gonna stop me from marrying Cynthy,” the sequence cuts to Jesse bathing in a tub, accompanied by upbeat music on the score. Jesse yells out a cheery, “Hey Bob!” as Ford enters the bathhouse laden with pails of hot water. Although the setup is lighthearted and playfully homoerotic, after Bob pours the water in to freshen Jesse’s bath, the score shifts to a threatening crescendo, punctuating a cut to a medium-close-up of Jesse’s back from Bob’s optical point of view. We remember Bob’s promise and recognize that he spies an opportunity, and as the significance of the moment sinks in—surely Jesse will never be this naively exposed and vulnerable again—Fuller ups the ante, cutting out to a long shot of Bob picking up a Colt 45—a gift from Jesse, and a convenient murder weapon. As the scene cuts between Bob’s point of view of Jesse’s back and a low angle of him fondling the gun and looking nervously at Jesse, the audience is placed in Bob’s subjectivity, recognizing his anxious indecision and how it is heightened by his mentor’s generosity and good spirits. At the same time, however, the clichéd sexual symbolism can’t help but shine through: a naked man has just given another man a gun—in a bathhouse! The dramatic suspense and campy comedy are held in tension as Fuller exerts even more narrative pressure, overlaying a shot of Jesse’s back with his exhortation to Ford: “Well go ahead, Bob. What are you waiting for? There’s my back … scrub it.” And then, given motive, opportunity, and means to shoot, Bob chooses to … scrub.
This scene provides an important moment of narrative suspense—will Bob kill Jesse or not?—while also underlining Jesse’s unquestioning trust in Bob and Bob’s hesitation in murdering Jesse. More significant, however, is how Fuller achieves these narrative goals, placing the viewer in Bob’s subjectivity while simultaneously highlighting tonal counterpoints. Although the bathhouse scene stands alone in I Shot Jesse James as an example of unexpected tonal play, this narrative strategy becomes much more widely used in Fuller’s later work.
As with the narrative, the visual style in I Shot Jesse James reflects Fuller’s search for techniques that will effectively heighten the viewer’s emotional involvement while maintaining production efficiency. The quality of the overall staging is uneven, however, and lays bare both Fuller’s inexperience and production constraints. Dialogue-laden scenes are typically constructed from a master shot and inserts, and the use of optical close-ups attests to the overall lack of coverage. While Fuller often staged scenes this way in his later films, I Shot Jesse James features none of the intricate blocking and camera movement that bring dynamism to his long takes in Pickup on South Street, Forty Guns, or The Crimson Kimono. The lack of camera movement and close angles are also felt in the film’s primary fistfight, captured by a high-angle, extreme long shot that diffuses the kineticism of the characters’ actions. More successful is the short fight between the marshal and Frank James, staged as an exchange of point-of-view shots: first the marshal punches into the camera in a medium close-up, and then Frank James recoils in an opposing medium close-up. Here the camera optically situates the viewer in the middle of the action, and the effect of the marshal’s punch is more fully felt.
The visual preferences that define Fuller’s later work are most apparent in the film’s opening and closing scenes. The opening is a largely wordless montage organized around character glances that depict an unfolding bank heist by Jesse James and his gang. The final image of the credits sequence, a poster announcing “$10,000 Reward For Jesse James Dead or Alive,” swish pans to the beginning of the scene, a close-up of an unidentified man we conclude to be James. The scene then cuts to an opposing close-up of another unidentified man, then back to James, whereupon the camera tracks out to a medium shot of the two men, revealing James to be holding a gun on the other man. By opening on the shot–reverse shot close-ups, Fuller immediately begins raising questions in the viewer’s mind: who are these men, and what is the conflict between them? The fourth shot in the scene answers these questions by presenting a long shot of the entire space: a bank robbery is in progress, and James is holding a gun on the head bank teller. Subsequent shots provide medium angles of the men, analytically dividing the space and creating eyeline matches between the tellers and the robbers, all motionless except for Bob Ford, stuffing money from the safe into a bag. The disorienting opening shots and lack of immediate exposition in I Shot Jesse James preview the similarly opaque beginnings of The Steel Helmet, Pickup on South Street, and The Naked Kiss, displaying an early iteration of Fuller’s penchant for keeping viewers guessing even as they expect to be clearly introduced to a new narrative.
As with the first part of I Shot Jesse James’s opening scene, the second segment is constructed like a tense intake of breath, everything held in suspension, until the sounding of the alarm prompts a sudden, fast release. Fuller develops the suspense of the robbery in a series of intercut close-ups of (A) James, (B) the head teller, and (C) the teller’s foot inching toward an alarm bell. The slight movement of the teller’s foot draws the viewer’s eye in contrast with the static, impassive close-ups, while the evenly paced editing draws out the teller’s movement and heightens our anticipation of the alarm, still unbeknownst to the James gang: ABCBC/B/ABCBC (alarm sounds). The subtle contrast between stasis and motion introduced in the first two segments of the scene becomes overt in the third, as the sound of the alarm bell spurs every man into action. Fuller returns to the medium shots of the men, their movements forming rhythmic patterns and developing graphic contrasts across the scene, providing a sudden burst of kineticism: Jesse looks offscreen right, then Bob looks offscreen right, then the bank tellers point their guns to the right; a gang member turns to the left and shoots, then another gang member shoots to the left. The return to the establishing shot completes the editing pattern that doubles the first segment of the scene and finally clarifies the escape of the James Gang.
James Ireland as Bob Ford (left) in a publicity still from the opening scene of I Shot Jesse James. Much of the scene is organized through eyeline matches—juxtaposing shots of characters’ glances with shots of what the characters are looking at. Photofest
The piecemeal construction of space, development of eyeline matches, contrast between stasis and motion, and rhythmic and graphic editing patterns utilized in this scene are early examples of some of Fuller’s favorite stylistic techniques, designed to emphasize conflict and motion within the frame. These same techniques are also brought to bear on the film’s closing scene, the final confrontation between Bob Ford and the marshal. Shot in depth and largely in darkness, the scene begins with an extended sequence that intercuts (A) a deep-space shot of the marshal, static in the foreground, first facing Bob, then turned away, and (B) a medium shot of Bob, advancing on the marshal with a drawn gun from the background, producing an editing pattern of ABABABABABA. In a reversal of the prototypical western showdown, the tension in the scene hinges on the marshal’s refusal to fight; by turning away from Bob, he dares him to again shoot a man in the back. Similar to the strategy he used in the second segment of the opening scene, Fuller extends the situation through repeated cuts back and forth between the depth shot of the marshal on the street and Bob, contrasting the marshal’s stasis in the frame with Bob’s advance into the foreground, causing the latter to loom ever larger in the frame. Here, however, the depth staging, chiaroscuro lighting, and violent yelling of Bob Ford create a darker, more chaotic feel. The staging of this sequence presages the showdowns at the end of Forty Guns and Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street, each utilizing rhythmic and graphic editing patterns and contrast between stasis and movement to heighten the scene’s dynamism and suspense.
The response to I Shot Jesse James exceeded Fuller’s and Lippert’s expectations, launching the film into top first-run houses, where it played steadily as the headliner from February through May of 1949 before moving to neighborhood theaters.16 Variety accurately noted, “Physical values are about usual level of Screen Guild releases, giving it the dressing for top playing time in houses buying sturdy action product.”17 In April the film debuted at the Palace in New York City, a 1,700-seat, first-run Broadway theater, a first for a Lippert picture. By August, Lippert estimated grosses for the film at an exceptionally high $800,000, although actual returns were probably lower. Regardless, I Shot Jesse James established Fuller as a director of offbeat action fare and gave Lippert the confidence to entrust an even larger budget to Fuller’s next picture.
The Baron of Arizona reveals both Lippert’s and Fuller’s increased ambitions. Lippert’s announcement of its 1949–1950 slate in Variety signaled its desire to move into more “epic” productions, as it planned three top-budget films, several intermediate and medium-priced pictures, as well as its usual budget westerns. Early trade notices placed The Baron of Arizona in Lippert’s top tier with a projected cost of $300,000, enabling Fuller to mount a historical costume picture with an extended shooting schedule, a ninety-minute running time, and increased production values.18 Fuller’s real coup was in attracting the services of legendary cinematographer James Wong Howe (Air Force [1943], Body and Soul [1947]), who agreed to work for a fraction of his regular fee. Again produced by Hittleman, the film is loosely based on the true story of James Addison Reavis, who planned an elaborate swindle in the 1870s to claim the territory of Arizona using a forged Spanish land grant. The Baron of Arizona introduces motifs and themes that will become characteristic of Fuller’s work, while its visual style features a richness and complexity only intermittently apparent in I Shot Jesse James.
The Baron of Arizona begins in 1912, as a group of tuxedoed dignitaries are toasting the admission of Arizona into the Union. One man, later revealed to be John Griff (Reed Hadley), a forgery expert, offers a toast to Reavis (Vincent Price), who recently celebrated his thirtieth wedding anniversary. Griff then begins to tell Reavis’s tale, prompting a flashback to 1872, when Reavis arrives outside Phoenix at the house of an adolescent girl named Sophia. Reavis tells her guardian, Alvarez (Vladimir Sokoloff), that Sophia’s real name is Peralta, and a Spanish land grant reveals she is the heir to the first baron of Arizona. Reavis summarily joins the makeshift family, molding Sophia into a young baroness and creating the physical evidence of her ancestors’ existence in Arizona. Despite Sophia’s reluctance to part with him, Reavis sails to Spain, where he spends several years disguised first as a monk and then as a gypsy in order to modify all the copies of the actual Spanish land grant. By the time he returns, Sophia has grown into a young woman (Ellen Drew), and the two marry, thereby giving Reavis complete control over her ancestral estate.
The second half of the film concerns Reavis’s attempts to defend Sophia’s claim and develop their land, while the federal government and local landowners contest his control. Griff arrives to lead the government’s investigation and put Reavis on trial, and Reavis, suddenly guilt-stricken, confesses his forgery to Sophia. Sophia stands by Reavis when he gives himself up to Griff, and he explains that his love for his wife is what made him confess. The film comes to a climax as an angry mob attempts to lynch Reavis. With the noose around his neck, Reavis convinces the mob that he must testify in court in order to ensure their land rights, and a newspaper insert announces his sentence of six years in prison. The epilogue portrays Reavis’s release from jail, when he finds Sophia and Alvarez waiting for him in the rain, loyal to the end.
The Baron of Arizona offers more examples of characteristically Fullerian story elements than the writer/director’s first feature, marking it as an early iteration of his emerging narrative tendencies. Here we see for the first time characters named Griff and Gunther; the gratuitous name-dropping of historical and literary figures, such as Pulitzer, Aristotle, and Cain; Fuller’s beloved bust of Beethoven, a signifier of high culture; and a character wielding a cigar. Fuller’s tremendous interest in history and the joy he took in research surfaces in a detailed fashion throughout the film, in scenes concerning the process of document forgery, the significance of the land grants to property holders, and the territory of Arizona. His dialogue writing also becomes more confidently campy, producing such gems as “Your claim is a cheap cigar wrapped in a rich Spanish leaf,” “I feel like Caesar’s wife before he was murdered,” “I don’t want a dead baron, I want a live husband,” and “It is not death but dying that alarms me. It is not your crime but your weakness that alarms me.” And a brief scene of comic relief with a gypsy dwarf presages all the oddball bits Fuller inserts in later narratives that play absolutely no role in advancing the plot.
Despite its prototypical narrative elements, The Baron of Arizona has received scant critical attention over the years and is among Fuller’s lesser-seen pictures. Combining aspects of a costume picture, crime film, thriller, and romance, the movie is admittedly hard to categorize, and the complexity of Reavis’s forgery plot can leave first-time viewers resigned to confusion. Two aspects of the narrative, the frame story and the characterization of Reavis, pose particular difficulties for the film’s reception, as the first gives the plot away and the second challenges plausibility.
Griff’s summary of the story in the opening scene and his subsequent voice-overs describing how Reavis falsified history serve as a frame for the primary plotline, helping to clarify the great leaps across time and space in the first half of the film and to explain why Reavis is running about chiseling on rocks and wooing a Spanish marquessa. Yet Griff’s stiff introduction is both pedestrian and overly revelatory, and his voice-overs disappear following the marriage of Sophia and Reavis. The end result is awkward at best and inadvertently highlights that the exposition is half the film’s running length. At the time of the film’s release, the Motion Picture Herald review noted that the opening scene “mitigated against suspense” and “reportedly will be eliminated,” but no such change was ever made.19 Interestingly, the revised final shooting script contains neither Griff’s initial scene nor his voice-overs; instead, the script begins with Reavis arriving at Alvarez’s house, and Griff first appears halfway through as the government’s investigation gets underway.20 This version appears more typically Fullerian, opening as it does on a scene of confrontation that is rendered in tight close-ups. The revised final shooting script leads one to suspect that the framing scene and voice-overs were added once it became clear to Fuller, Hittleman, or both, that viewer comprehension of the narrative necessitated additional connective tissue to weave together the intricate plot.
The conclusion of the released film creates additional problems for some critics, who complained that Reavis’s recognition of his love for Sophia and subsequent disavowal of the barony appear undermotivated.21 The redemptive power of love is a theme that appears in various forms in a number of Fuller pictures, but rather than figuring as a substantive plotline, here it seems merely tacked-on. Although Griff’s introduction of the story in the opening scene informs us that Reavis has been married for thirty years, as soon as Reavis arrives onscreen the film presents him as nothing less than a cad, an unrepentant liar and manipulator of all those around him. Price’s spirited performance as Reavis, full of raised eyebrows and knowing glances, radiates his character’s delight in criminal activity. His smoldering declaration, “I’ve known many women before, but with you, I’m afraid” becomes a motif, a sign of Reavis’s false nature, as he repeats it first to the gypsy girl Rita, then to the Spanish marquessa, and finally to Sophia. For three-quarters of the film, Reavis’s every onscreen move is motivated by greed; once he appears close to being beaten by Griff, he converts to a repentant husband in only two scenes. But it is hard for viewers to forgive a man they have grown to mistrust; they remember what they have seen (Reavis as a criminal, lying all the way), rather than what they initially heard (Reavis has been married for thirty years). The narrative’s detailed focus on how Reavis attempts to steal Arizona leads viewers to wonder how he almost gets away with it rather than how he is eventually redeemed. Fuller revisits the theme of the power of love to save a criminal to greater effect in Pickup on South Street, with a redemptive woman that is not quite so pure and a criminal who is not so thoroughly redeemed.
It is in the style of The Baron of Arizona that Fuller makes his greatest advances, as he teams with James Wong Howe to produce the most classically staged and visually striking film of his Lippert career. Most likely through the influence of Howe, who was trained within the studio system to cover scenes with many shots at varied angles, Fuller moves beyond the reliance on master shots plus inserts seen in I Shot Jesse James and organizes scenes in a more complex manner. The vast majority of sequences include full coverage and analytical editing, as shots establish characters within space, highlight actions and emotions, and reestablish space. This exceedingly classical approach to scene construction heightens the clarity and emotional impact of the narrative in a more subtle fashion than other options adopted later by Fuller. During sequences dominated by long takes, Fuller uses character blocking, camera movement, and depth staging to create new compositions within the same shot, renewing visual interest and punctuating plot points in the absence of editing.
The primary staging strategies in The Baron of Arizona are illustrated by a scene midway through the film when Reavis is confronted in his office first by a railroad executive and then by landowners and a newspaperman. The three-minute, seven-second scene begins with a two-minute long take, as Gunther of Southern Railroad (Joseph Green) arrives to negotiate with Reavis for the right-of-way to run his railroad. Within the long take, five distinct compositions emerge, as the camera tracks and pans to follow the movement of the two characters around the edge of the room and into and out of depth. Pauses in camera movement, positioning of Reavis and Gunther within the frame, and their frontality (or lack of it) mark shifts in the conversation and guide the viewer’s eye within the long take. After Gunther and Reavis shake hands on their financial deal, the long take cuts to a new sequence organized analytically, as a large group of landowners barge in on Reavis and Gunther demanding to know the status of their land rights. The scene ends with a reporter telling Reavis that he is going to be written up as the man who changed geography; the camera tracks in and tilts up to capture a close-up of Reavis’s reaction, as he puts his cigar in his mouth, raises his eyebrow, and beams.
In a publicity still from The Baron of Arizona, the territory’s men and Gunther of Southern Railroad (Joseph Green, center) question Addison Reavis (Vincent Price, foreground, right of center) about his ambitions. In this portion of the scene, Fuller uses analytical editing to highlight the men’s reactions to Reavis’s growing dominance. Author’s collection
The completely different staging strategies utilized in the two halves of this scene neatly divide the sequences and function in different ways. The long take that opens the scene captures two businessmen who are financial equals and reveals the breadth of Reavis’s ambition as Gunther roams around the office and explores all of Reavis’s financial interests. The second half of the scene unfolds as a confrontation, and analytical editing enables attention to be appropriately directed across a large number of characters. In this sequence, editing and changing shot scales provide progressively tighter or wider framings depending on the dialogue. Reaction shots are particularly prominent, as characters digest the significance of their situations and what they have learned. Reavis’s location in the center foreground of the wider shots gives him prominence within the frame and emphasizes his position of power, a stature that is reinforced by the track in to his expression of glee in the final shot of the scene. Long takes with camera and character movement and analytically edited scenes form the foundation of Fuller’s visual style in The Baron of Arizona and remain key staging strategies throughout his career, particularly during his years at Twentieth Century–Fox.
As with the dialogue scenes, the staging of action-oriented sequences in The Baron of Arizona advances to a new level. The attack of the mob and attempted lynching of Reavis is the visual high point of the film and the most complicated action sequence Fuller had yet directed. Here many of the stylistic strategies utilized in the opening and closing of I Shot Jesse James are further developed, producing a scene of dark chaos and palpable kineticism. As in the opening of I Shot Jesse James, the attempted lynching scene in The Baron of Arizona begins in tense anticipation, as Griff, Alvarez, Reavis, Sophia, and her governess ride into an eerily quiet town square. In a series of quick cuts, Fuller reveals to the viewer what the group is unaware of: a mob of local landowners is hiding in the darkness. Fearing the mob will attack Reavis’s wagon, we wait in suspense, until an offscreen gunshot breaks the silence and changes the entire mood of the scene.
As the mob runs at the wagon from all sides, Fuller orchestrates a rhythmic pattern of graphic contrasts that emphasizes the entrapment of Reavis and his loved ones. The pacing of the editing picks up as the mob runs in low angles first into the right foreground, then into the left foreground, followed by medium-close-up reaction shots of Reavis, Sophia, and Alvarez. The same pattern is repeated again, only this time the mob carries torches: the mob runs to the foreground right, the mob runs to the foreground left, then the three reaction shots. The juxtaposition of contrasting screen direction suggests a clashing of opposing forces, heightening the sense that Reavis, Sophia, and Alvarez are surrounded by danger. Their reaction shots confirm this impression, focusing attention on their fear and bewilderment as the landowners physically attack them. The rest of the scene follows Reavis, Sophia, and Alvarez as they escape from the mob and barricade themselves in Reavis’s office until a battering ram breaks the door down, and the landowners attempt to string up Reavis. James Wong Howe’s chiaroscuro lighting plays a dominant role in creating a mood of terror, as the flames from the torches fill the darkened frame and the shadow of the noose is cast across Reavis’s wall-size map of Arizona. Mob scenes appear in a number of other Fuller pictures (House of Bamboo, Verboten!, The Crimson Kimono, The Naked Kiss, and Street of No Return), providing the local community’s reaction to the central events in the story, although not always in so violent a fashion. This mob scene is strikingly designed to emphasize movement and conflict within in the frame, two stylistic strategies that are central to Fuller’s goal of generating physical and emotional responses in the viewer.
Although The Baron of Arizona was Lippert’s attempt at a “prestige” release, it lacked many of the selling points that helped to insure success for a historical picture at the box office, such as an origin in a successful literary property, star power, or color cinematography. The film followed a similar distribution strategy as I Shot Jesse James, but the difference in the nature of the film and its lack of marketable elements doomed it to a much less successful run. The Baron of Arizona premiered in Phoenix in March 1950 and played first-run houses to fair returns through June, eventually limping toward a disappointing one-week run at the Palace in New York and appearing on the bottom half of first-run double bills by July.22 While reviewers noted that the film was clearly Lippert’s most expensive and ambitious effort to date, Variety suggested that the decision to focus on character rather than action undermined the picture’s potential for success: “In so doing, it defeats its purpose in the market where Lippert releases usually play. Outlook for good returns in the general situation appears slim.”23 The box office mirrored Variety’s prediction, and The Baron of Arizona eventually was outperformed by Lippert’s shorter and more moderately budgeted science-fiction effort of that year, Rocketship X-M (1950).24
Fuller publicly expressed his dissatisfaction with the way The Baron of Arizona turned out, especially with the supervision of producer Hittleman. While Lippert clearly intended The Baron of Arizona to be a more prestigious entry than I Shot Jesse James, the decision to distribute the two films in an identical manner failed to capitalize on the former’s higher production values and aspirations as a costume drama; instead, its release pattern virtually guaranteed that The Baron of Arizona would disappoint audiences expecting another rousing adventure film or at least a little action. The high cost and low box-office return of The Baron of Arizona forced Lippert and Fuller to retrench for their next picture together, a decision that resulted in the most critically and commercially successful film of their partnership.
Establishing a Voice: The Steel Helmet
With The Steel Helmet, Fuller had an opportunity to take the lessons he had learned from his first two pictures and apply them to a subject he was intimately familiar with: war. The result is the first picture in which his narrative and stylistic aesthetic fully takes shape. In a retreat from the epic ambitions of The Baron of Arizona, The Steel Helmet featured the faster shooting schedule, lower budget, and shorter length of I Shot Jesse James.25 Fuller capitalized on the recent outbreak of the Korean War, quickly adapting the stories he had gathered in his diary during World War II and readying production within weeks. Rather than shooting for a low-grade A picture, as he did with The Baron of Arizona, Fuller mounted The Steel Helmet as an ambitious B. His star, Gene Evans, was an unknown and was supported entirely by no-name character actors. Without the money to film in any location resembling Korea, Fuller shot the majority of the movie in a rented studio, utilizing two sets (a forest and a Buddhist temple) and adding material from one to two days of outdoor work in Los Angeles’s Griffith Park. The battle scenes consist of stock war footage intercut with shots of UCLA students dressed up as North Korean soldiers. Despite lacking anything resembling naturalistic mise-en-scene, The Steel Helmet nevertheless exudes authenticity due to Fuller’s blunt, unsparing handling of the subject matter. Fuller knew full well the limitations inherent in depicting war on celluloid but was determined to convey the details of a footsoldier’s life and the emotions of war as accurately as possible. As presented in the film, war is not noble or glorious but simply fatigue interrupted by death.
Fuller’s approach to the combat film genre was very much a personal one, and he often drew the characters and situations in his war pictures directly from who he knew and what he saw during his time as a soldier. Having spent over fifteen years in journalism by the time he enlisted, Fuller seems to have approached his war service as an opportunity to gather really good copy. Although he was offered numerous opportunities to escape combat, Fuller wanted to be where the action was, on the ground with the “doggies,” and he sought an assignment with the infantry.26 He carried with him a diary that functioned much like a reporter’s notebook, with descriptions of military activities, living conditions, casualties, and vacation leaves, including instructions for how real-life situations might be incorporated into future stories. When it came time to write The Steel Helmet, Fuller’s own war experiences colored his interpretation of combat film conventions, resulting in a picture that invites us not to identify with recognizable Americans fighting for a valiant cause, but to share in the feeling of what it is like to be a foot-soldier. When the seemingly harmless can turn deadly and a sniper waits around every corner, fear, confusion, and exhaustion reign supreme.
The Steel Helmet first introduces us to Sergeant Zack (Evans), a self-absorbed WWII retread who is rescued by a South Korean orphan (William Chun) after surviving a massacre. Initially hostile to the child’s friendly advances, Zack bows to his persistence and allows him to follow behind, giving him the nickname Short Round (“cause you’re not going all the way”). Zack’s emotional detachment protects him from the horrors of war, but he slowly starts to let his guard down and develops a fondness for Short Round. The two eventually meet up with an African-American medic, Corporal Thompson (James Edwards), and a lost patrol. Led by battle-inexperienced Lieutenant Driscoll (Steve Brodie), the patrol is made up of a strikingly oddball version of the generic “mixed platoon,” including Sergeant Tanaka (Richard Loo), a second-generation Japanese-American; Bronte (Robert Hutton), who carries the hand organ of a dead priest; Baldy (Richard Monahan), a hairless radio man; Joe (Sid Melton), who manages the pack mules and doesn’t speak; and a nameless soldier who will soon be blown away (Fuller regular Neyle Morrow). Zack quickly sizes each of them up, defining their competence as soldiers according to their service during WWII: while Tanaka and Thompson saw combat, Driscoll was stationed stateside and Bronte was a conscientious objector. The bedraggled group footslog through the jungle to a Buddhist temple, where Joe is killed by a North Korean major (Harold Fong) whom the remainder capture as a POW. While the others rest, the North Korean questions first Thompson and then Tanaka regarding their loyalty to a country that doesn’t embrace them as equals. Zack snaps when a sniper kills Short Round, turning on the sneering POW and fatally shooting him. During an intense North Korean assault on the temple, Driscoll and Bronte prove themselves in battle and are killed, and Zack breaks down. Only Tanaka, Thompson, Baldy, and a dazed Zack walk out of the temple when reinforcements arrive.
The overarching story of The Steel Helmet, the title, and many of the incidents that occur in the film originated in Fuller’s war diaries. On September 11, 1943, he wrote about what will become the first and last shots of The Steel Helmet:
Fighting in Sicily strictly an inf. war. Up & down mountains, across ravines & draws, over terrain which could be negotiated only on foot. Emphasize this in story with dedication ‘to the United States infantry.’ Show them on footslog—just a patrol for opening and end same way.27
Sergeant Zack began in Fuller’s notebook as a battle-hardened veteran who hooks up with an untested patrol to capture a German operative in a monastery; when the Korean conflict broke out in 1950, Fuller quickly adapted the old plot to the new war. The title of the film came directly from another diary entry: “Everybody wants helmet with bullet hole in it for luck. Finke tells me get my own bullet hole in helmet.”28 Even one of the film’s most shocking incidents was drawn from real life. Next to a diary entry, “Doggie booby trapped. W. killed examining him,” is the reminder: “Remember inc. this in Finke story. Found dead American—warned—but goddam green doggie went for dog tags and blown up—body booby trapped. Use this stupid character in ‘Steel Helmet’ story to show what not to do.”29 As recorded in his diary, Fuller’s war experiences served as a primer for the writing of his combat pictures, providing lessons in how to survive and reminders of the physical and psychological toll taken on those who do.
When sitting down to write The Steel Helmet, Fuller grafted his own war experiences onto a generic foundation provided by the WWII combat film, participating in a redirection of the genre toward darker themes. The opening dedication (“This story is dedicated to the U.S. Infantry”); gruff, experienced sergeant; scruffy, “mixed background” platoon; group on patrol; and defense of an outpost found in The Steel Helmet are all standard-issue elements in WWII combat films, as well as in later Korean War pictures.30 By drawing on a set of characters and situations that were familiar to viewers, Fuller spared himself from having to provide detailed backstories and exposition, allowing him to focus more on the soldiers’ routines and the effects of war than on how they got there and where they were going. The film’s generic signposts also help to make otherwise implausible events that are not causally motivated appear more realistic to viewers.31 Within the context of the genre, then, Zack’s miraculous survival of the unseen massacre, his discovery by Short Round and their discovery of the medic, the lost patrol, and the lone Communist North Korean hiding in the temple all seem reasonable or likely, even though highly coincidental, as these are story elements that viewers recognize from previous combat pictures. The combat film genre thus provides Fuller not only with a broad outline of appropriate characters and situations, but also with a means of making the episodic events in the film appear unified and realistic.
The Steel Helmet takes the combat film in a new direction, however, as Fuller tweaks some conventions, abandons others, and forces the viewer to consider unpleasant truths. Apart from the retread sergeant, the film’s protagonists are a bizarre collection of colorful characters atypical of the genre. It’s as if Fuller said, “You want a cross representation of America? I’ll show you America!” In place of the Italian from Brooklyn and the farm boy from Nebraska so often seen in earlier combat films, the “all-American” platoon of The Steel Helmet contains a silent mule herder and a bald man who rubs dirt on his head, both of whom provide strange scenes of comic relief. Also on the journey are an African-American and a Nisei, neither of whom would have shared a foxhole with Sergeant Zack in a WWII combat picture; along with the conscientious objector, these characters enable Fuller to address the paradoxes inherent in the choice to fight for one’s country. While the white soldier, Bronte, refused to fight in the last war, Tanaka and Thompson served their country, even though their country didn’t consider them as equals at the time. Even the platoon’s lieutenant defies convention. Rather than being presented as an experienced leader whom the men trust, Zack and several North Korean snipers discredit Driscoll almost as soon as he is introduced, elevating combat readiness over rank in the estimation of a soldier’s worth. While Driscoll redeems himself at the end of the picture, the scenario of enlisted men saddled with a green lieutenant highlights the need of soldiers to rely on themselves rather than on their officers, an emerging theme of the combat film genre that becomes particularly prominent in movies about the Vietnam War.
Fuller’s representation of war is bleaker than most earlier combat films, highlighting the confusion, uncertainty, sudden death, and numbing fatigue characteristic of combat experience. From the opening sequence, which leads the viewer to anticipate Short Round will be Zack’s killer rather than his savior, Zack and his fellow soldiers are presented as existing in a world where little is as it seems. Every Korean must be mistrusted; nothing can be taken for granted. Lost in a fog-wrapped jungle, the soldiers even fire on each other, mistaking fellow Americans for the enemy. The group’s mission takes them into unfamiliar territory: a temple, dominated by a giant Buddha that ends up functioning in ways never intended by its builders—supporting IV bottles and protecting the men from artillery. When the soldiers have a moment to spare, they engage only in activities necessary to staying alive: eating and sleeping. No romantic subplots. No talk of Mom and God. Most of the time, they simply march and watch and wait. With only twelve minutes of battle footage in two scenes, The Steel Helmet presents actual warfare as a sudden break in the monotony, an intermittent obstacle to the soldiers’ primary goal—survival—rather than as the centerpiece of a narrative concerned with victory or defeat, such as in Air Force (1943), Guadalcanal Diary (1943), or Back to Bataan (1945).
Even the final postscript of The Steel Helmet, “There is no end to this story,” differs significantly from the sentiments expressed at the end of previous combat films. Superimposed over a shot of the bedraggled remains of the platoon, the declaration lacks any triumphant or redeeming element; instead, it suggests weary resignation, in marked contrast to the emotional note hit at the end of most WWII combat pictures in which most of the unit is killed, such as Wake Island (1942) (“This is not the end. There are other leathernecks who will exact a just and terrible vengeance.”) or The Story of G.I. Joe (1945) (“I hope we can rejoice with victory … that all together we will try to reassemble our broken world.”). In The Steel Helmet, the survivors march toward a mission that will repeat the patterns of the last; their replacements will fight the same battle they just fought; whoever is alive at the end will return for the next war. Fuller suggests that from battle to battle and war to war, the burdens of the footsoldiers remain unchanged.
Perhaps the most striking examples of Fuller’s reworking of genre conventions are the two scenes dedicated to the question of why we fight. Rather than presenting soldiers sitting around the campfire discussing the benefits of democracy, the defense of family, or service to God and country, Fuller gets to the heart of the question: why put your life on the line for a country that has never lived up to its ideals? As the Communist North Korean POW attempts to “turn” first the African-American medic and then the Japanese-American sergeant by asking why each fights for a country that treats him as a second-class citizen, the visual presentation of each point of view remains neutral, encouraging the viewer to favor neither one side nor the other. The logical reasoning of the POW creates ambiguity concerning who is actually the more rational thinker. Although the POW has just killed the likable mule tender Joe, his perspective is not demonized; rather, his character brings to light how far America has to go in fulfilling its promise.
Both the pointed conversation and two singularly distinct visual styles differentiate these scenes from the rest of the film, setting them apart to encourage the contemplation of contemporary race relations. In his conversation with Thompson, the POW references the Jim Crow laws of the South, asking the African-American to confirm that he cannot eat with white men and has to sit at the back of the public bus. Thompson agrees, but says, “A hundred years ago I couldn’t even ride in a bus. At least now I can sit in the back. Maybe in fifty years I’ll sit in the middle, and some day up front. There’s some things you just can’t rush, buster.” As Thompson is one of the most sympathetic characters in the film up to this point, you might expect his perspective on race relations to carry more visual weight than that of the POW. Yet the scene stylistically favors neither soldier. In a sequence shot, the camera tracks 180 degrees from one man to the other, unmotivated by character movement. First one soldier, then the other is favored with frontality as he states his position. With no stylistic tools emphasizing either character’s speech, the viewer is encouraged to consider each in turn, perhaps to the point of acknowledging that the POW makes a certain amount of sense. Here Fuller is exposing the contradictions of America, a country still failing to live up to its credo that all are created equal. Such an explicit examination of a contemporary social problem is new to Fuller’s directorial palette. While the occasion for the discussion is causally motivated by the medic attending to the POW’s injury, the direction of their conversation and the singularly evenhanded yet unmotivated camera movement distance the scene from the rest of the film and mark it as a self-consciously ambiguous moment.
The POW’s discussion with Tanaka, a second-generation Japanese-American, features a different visual presentation but functions similarly, again highlighting the irony of fighting for a country that denies your basic rights. Almost immediately following the scene with Thompson, the camera tilts down to frame Tanaka and the POW sitting next to each other in a two-shot. The POW notes, “You’ve got the same kind of eyes I have…. They hate us because of our eyes.” Tanaka replies with a sleepy brush-off, but the POW gets his attention when he asks if Tanaka’s family was among the Japanese-Americans who were interned in camps during WWII—a shameful event in American history rarely mentioned in movies of this period. The POW’s question is punctuated by a cut in to an unusually tight close-up of his face, beginning a pattern of cuts between extreme close-ups of each man as he speaks. While the scene contains more conventional analytical editing than the sequence with the African-American medic, its visual construction again emphasizes both men’s comments equally. Tanaka admits that his family was detained, but that he nevertheless fought in the war for the United States. When the POW questions why Tanaka fought overseas after being called a “dirty Jap rat” at home, the veteran replies, “I’m an American. When we get pushed around at home, that’s our business.” The scene’s proximity to the POW’s conversation with the medic and its evenhanded visual presentation again draw attention to the POW’s argument, but Tanaka’s casual dismissal of him (“Don’t you guys know when you’re licked?”) betrays no particular concern. As before, Fuller brings front and center questions regarding what it means to be an American and to fight for one’s country.
The pointed discussion of race in these scenes, their unusual visual presentation, and their singularity in the film—the POW does not question any other members of the platoon—all contribute to their self-consciousness. Set apart from the rest of the narrative, these scenes encourage viewers to think. While the POW’s words are, on one level, true, we have seen the bravery and intelligence of Thompson and Tanaka and how they are respected by the rest of the men. Within the platoon, they are fully integrated, measured by their talent and experience, not by the color of their skin. In The Steel Helmet, it is the platoon—not the home front—that demonstrates why we fight, that illustrates the possibility of a just and equal America.
In order to provide viewers with a sense of what a footsoldier experiences during war, Fuller had to do more than rework genre conventions: he had to reconstruct how we watch a war film.
You can’t make a real war picture, because the audience can get up and go buy their popcorn at any time. They’re never hurt. And war means casualties. The best way would be to occasionally fire at them from behind the screen during a battle scene! No, really, I’m not joking about this.… If someone, once in a while, was hit, that would give the audience a feeling for the tension of war.32
The tension of war—the numbing anxiety evoked by unexpected outbreaks of violence, of fatigue interrupted by death—is what Fuller attempts to suggest in The Steel Helmet, structuring the episodic narrative so as create abrupt shifts in tone and alternating sequences of suspense and surprise. The opening scene telegraphs these strategies. As the film’s credits come to an end, superimposed over a steel helmet with a bullet hole in it, the helmet unexpectedly tilts up, and two suspicious eyes peer out to survey the landscape. The movement takes us by surprise, as the bullet hole and the helmet’s immobility previously led us to assume that the helmet’s owner was dead. Our curiosity regarding the soldier’s survival quickly turns to suspense, however, as shots of the soldier crawling forward with his hands bound behind his back are intercut with shots of advancing bare feet and a dangling rifle. The sense of an impending threat is heightened through the heavy violin strings on the soundtrack, and we know the soldier has not escaped death yet—though he himself remains unaware. A tilt up the body of the interloper reveals a child’s face, but our momentary relief is checked when he leans over the soldier with a knife. As we wonder if this child is a North Korean out to finish the job, the music comes to a halt, and the child quickly cuts the soldier’s ropes rather than his throat. Fuller could have shot this scene through the perspective of the bound soldier, whom we will soon come to know as Zack, our protagonist. But by providing us at times with more information than Zack, Fuller encourages us to feel not only Zack’s relief at being saved, but also the anxiety of knowing he may as easily have been killed. This play between restricted and unrestricted narration continues throughout the film, binding the viewer less to Zack’s particular experience than to the overall tension inherent to war.
The irony resulting from the opening sequence—a potential North Korean killer is revealed to be a friendly and helpful South Korean child—is replayed throughout the film, as sequences with perceived threats unfold harmlessly while scenes seemingly empty of threat wind up being deadly. This pattern of alternating sequences of relative calm with moments of unexpected violence becomes the dominant structural strategy in the film, constantly catching viewers off guard and teaching us to imagine the uncertainty faced by soldiers in combat. In the rest of the first act, the pattern is repeated when a group of civilians praying at an altar pull rifles from their robes and open fire on Zack and Short Round; when snipers suddenly attack after Zack and Thompson initially part ways with the platoon; and then again on the road, after a protracted sequence of calm is followed by an explosion just as the rest of the men are sitting down and eating watermelon. That an American soldier is killed taking the dog tags off the corpse of a fellow infantryman makes the moment even more ironic—it is the soldier’s kindness that gets him killed. As the platoon establishes an observation post in the temple during the second act, a series of comic bits with Joe, the mule driver who does not talk, again establish a carefree tone. The lighthearted mood is then undercut when the North Korean kills Joe, initiating a new line of action as the soldiers hunt for the killer. Finally, after the North Korean is caught, the third act begins with Zack, Short Round, and the POW preparing to leave the temple. It would appear that the enemy threat to the soldiers has been removed, but cutaways to a sniper setting up outside the temple suggest that the platoon is unknowingly in for a final battle, establishing a mood of suspense. Nevertheless, even though the shot of the sniper informs us of a threat, the offscreen death of Short Round is deeply shocking, as the death of a child mascot, especially one so pure and good-hearted, goes so firmly against classical Hollywood conventions. But Fuller doesn’t let up: Zack’s subsequent shooting of the POW delivers another unexpected blow, raising the specter of American soldiers engaging in war crimes. These final acts of startling violence precipitate the massive bombardment of the temple by the enemy, the death of most of the platoon, and the unraveling of Sergeant Zack’s mind. The sudden and ironic shifts between moments of calm and violence in The Steel Helmet exemplify the stark contrasts in tone and action that pervade Fuller’s work. The unexpected appearance of violence shocks and surprises the viewer, who is left uncertain of when and where to expect the next threat. The narrative structure thereby offers viewers a distant sense of the tension felt by soldiers in war without requiring gunfire in the theater.
Gene Evans as Sergeant Zack in a publicity still from the opening scene in The Steel Helmet. Fuller heightens the suspense by intercutting shots of Zack’s slow crawl forward with images of an advancing Korean boy holding a gun. Note the hole in Zack’s helmet—where he was shot but unharmed—and the knife in the foreground, which will be activated at the end of the scene. Chrisam Films, Inc.
Although the film’s omniscient narration and Zack’s off-putting personality mitigate against viewers identifying with his character, Zack’s central role within the narrative and his emergence as the most experienced and combat-smart member of the platoon position him as the hero of the film. We root for him to survive and to protect the platoon, and as he grows closer to Short Round, we thrill to see his awkward expressions of sentiment. In a cruelly ironic twist characteristic of Fuller, however, Short Round’s merciful rescue of Zack at the beginning of the film proves to be the downfall of both characters. The introduction of the two in the opening scene highlights their significant differences: although both characters have experienced the horrors of war, Short Round remains generous and spiritual, while Zack is self-interested and suspicious. Zack’s single-minded approach to survival proves necessary in the jungle and on the road in the first act, but upon the platoon’s arrival at the temple, Short Round’s devotion to prayer highlights the basic human feeling that has been absent in Zack for so long. Zack’s attitude toward Short Round softens, and as he slowly turns the prayer wheel, one wonders if Zack is beginning to take seriously the spirituality he has thus far ridiculed. At the beginning of the third act, Zack and Short Round are alone together as the boy writes yet another prayer. Rather than making fun of Short Round’s belief in divinity, as he has consistently throughout the film, Zack now pins the prayer on Short Round’s back, a marker of his growing respect for the boy. After Short Round leaves the room, Zack crafts “dog tags” for him, an additional sign of his growing love. Despite his earlier aloofness, Zack has finally accepted the spiritual basis of Short Round’s loyalty to him and wants to adopt the boy into his own world—that of the U.S. Army.
Making the dog tags is the first act of kindness and generosity committed by Zack in the entire film, and his newfound emotions prove to be his undoing. When Short Round is shot in the subsequent scene and the POW laughs at the remnants of the boy’s prayer, Zack kills the POW in a fury, breaking the Geneva Convention and prompting the lieutenant to challenge him, yelling, “You’re no soldier!” Recognizing his mistake, Zack calls for the medic to save the POW’s life and threatens his victim, “If you die, I’ll kill you!” The paradoxical nature of Zack’s order underscores the ironic situation he finds himself in: his affection for Short Round caused him to forget what it means to be a soldier; now he must save the man he most wants to see dead. With both Short Round gone and his identity as a soldier in question, Zack loses his mind in battle. Without the protection of his hard-won pragmatism and emotional isolation, he leaves the temple a broken man.
The potential in the combat film for the activation of ambiguity, contradiction, death, and despair make it one of the genres most compatible with Fuller’s brand of storytelling. By setting the relationship of Sergeant Zack and Short Round against the ordeals of the platoon, the narrative of The Steel Helmet highlights the conflict experienced by Zack between his growing humanity and his desire for self-preservation. As with most Fuller films, the construction of the narrative suggests this is a conflict that cannot be resolved. In a state of war, emotion is weakness, and compassion begets death. The killing of Short Round and the reduction of the film’s hero to a mere shell of a man are shocking reminders to viewers that no one escapes unscathed from war, even those who manage to walk away.
The Steel Helmet establishes the character types, themes, and situations that Fuller will revisit in his four subsequent combat pictures: Fixed Bayonets, China Gate, Merrill’s Marauders, and The Big Red One. All focus on a small group of soldiers rather than attempting to provide an overview of the war, and each eschews triumphalism in favor of emotional authenticity. Another Korean War film made quickly on the heels of The Steel Helmet, Fixed Bayonets takes the mixed platoon of its predecessor into the winter mountains and isolates the group in a cave. Fuller again utilizes unexpected violence to produce tension and surprise, as the protagonist watches his commanding officers die one by one, deeply fearing his eventual assumption of command. Produced while Fuller was under contract at Twentieth Century–Fox, Fixed Bayonets lacks the loopiness and ideological exchanges of The Steel Helmet, but these characteristics return in China Gate, written by Fuller as an independent Globe Enterprises release. The first American combat picture set in Vietnam, China Gate is also the only Fuller war film whose protagonist is motivated by something other than survival. Lucky Legs, the film’s Eurasian hero, agrees to undertake a search and destroy mission in order to ensure a life for her child in America. Fuller exploits her mixed ancestry and love affair with a Communist leader for extended discussions of race and politics, making China Gate the most didactic of his combat pictures. Based on real events and shot on location with relatively large casts and crews, Merrill’s Marauders and The Big Red One expand the scope of Fuller’s combat sequences at the same time as they focus more narrowly on a single topic: staying alive. Stripped of any significant female presence or discussions of why we fight, their narratives abandon the romantic plotline and didacticism of China Gate to craft repetitious scenes emphasizing the unmerciful nature of war and the simple triumph of survival; in doing so, they offer perhaps the most distilled representation of Fuller’s worldview. In its redirection of genre conventions, alteration of suspense and surprise, emphasis on paradoxical situations, and attempt to suggest the anxieties experienced by soldiers in war, The Steel Helmet anticipates aspects of each of Fuller’s later combat pictures.
The topicality of The Steel Helmet, widespread critical praise, and its distinctly different distribution strategy helped it to attain greater financial success than Fuller’s first two Lippert pictures. With its lack of stars and minimal production design, The Steel Helmet relied on the timeliness of its subject matter to sell the film. Newspaper advertisements exclaimed, “It’s the real Korean story!” next to an image of Sergeant Zack’s eyes peering out from below his bullet-ridden helmet. Variety predicted “a sure money film,” and Boxoffice pegged it as a potentially lucrative programmer, noting the flexibility of the film’s eighty-four-minute running time to play either side of a double bill.33
The Steel Helmet debuted in Los Angeles with a two-week run in mid-January 1951, topping a double bill with the Lippert western Three Desperate Men (1951) at the 2,100-seat United Artists theater downtown and at four smaller first run houses.34 Strong returns, including the best trade in two years at the UA, generated momentum for the film’s booking at the end of the month in New York City’s Loew’s State, a 3,450-seat theater that had never previously played a Lippert film. At the State, The Steel Helmet scored a “smash” $26,000 in its first frame, the theater’s best in many weeks, and was held over for ten additional days. When the film opened in first-run theaters in five major markets at the beginning of February, it emerged as the seventh highest grosser for the week. Despite controversy surrounding the film’s depiction of Sergeant Zack shooting an unarmed prisoner of war, The Steel Helmet eventually generated over $2 million in ticket sales and earned Fuller an award from independent exhibitors for the top-grossing drama from 1948 to 1953.35 The film’s low cost and high gross made it a model for the potential profitability of a programmer. Opening the film first in Los Angeles and New York enabled it to generate positive critical attention and to illustrate the box-office draw of its timely subject matter; during its subsequent rollout, these two factors maintained the film’s status as a headliner capable of filling large houses.
Following the release of The Steel Helmet, Samuel Fuller was in high demand. Fuller’s work at Lippert, and particularly the success of The Steel Helmet, demonstrated his ability to shoot quickly and cheaply and still churn out a profitable film, and soon the majors came calling. In interviews, Fuller claims to have been wooed by production executives from most of the big studios, including MGM, Warner Bros., Twentieth Century–Fox, Universal, and Columbia. Eventually he settled on Fox. Although he could not hope to gain the creative and administrative control he eventually enjoyed at Lippert from a larger studio, working for a major provided Fuller with access to stars, increased budgets, longer shooting schedules, additional equipment, better distribution, and more publicity. In leaving Lippert for Fox, Fuller temporarily left the world of low-budget filmmaking to create his only series of genuine A pictures. At the same time, he adapted his aesthetic to meet the quality controls and streamlined production methods in use at the major studios, resulting in the most refined and classically constructed films of his career.
