Samuel Fuller

Samuel Fuller: "Samuel Fuller (1911-1997)



American screenwriter, producer and director, a controversial figure in American cinema, who also wrote most of the screenplays of his film. Fuller has been called the Joe McCarthy of Hollywood film making, who seemingly opposed everything that he saw threatening the traditional American way of life. In Europe Fuller was a highly acclaimed auteur by leftist film-makers. Fuller's right-wing noir movie PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (1953) was ambiguous in its ideology and the thriller WHITE DOG (1982), dealing with the subject of racism, was unjustly prevented from having a proper release. In the story an actress unknowingly acquires a dog that has been trained to attack blacks only. Then the dog is given to a black animal trainer but ironically now it starts to hate whites.

Jim Jarmusch: What is God to you?
Samuel Fuller: Nature.
(from Tigrero, dir. by Mika Kaurismäki, 1994)

Samuel Fuller was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, the son of Rebecca Baum and Benjamin Rabinovitch. Fuller tells in his autobiography, A THIRD FACE (2002), that he did not speak until he was five. His first word was 'Hammer!' After Fuller's father died in 1923 the family moved to New York City, where Fuller became a copyboy on the New York Journal. At 17 he was a crime reporter for the San Diego Sun. During the Depression years Fu"