The Films of Samuel Fuller. Lisa Dombrowski
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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