Eclipse Series 5: The First Films of Samuel Fuller

His films have been called raw, outrageous, sensational, and daring. In four decades of directing, Samuel Fuller created a legendarily idiosyncratic oeuvre, examining U.S. history and mythmaking in westerns, film noirs, and war epics. And, characteristically, it all began with a bang: after “printing the legend” with the elegant B pictures I Shot Jesse James and The Baron of Arizona, he got himself into hot water with the FBI with The Steel Helmet, the first American movie to portray the Korean War. These three independent films—showing off Fuller’s genre diversity, gutter wit, and subversive force—set the stage for his controversial career in moviemaking.