Samuel Fuller

 Samuel Fuller



Pickup on South Street (1953)

Shock Corridor (1963)



RANKED:


2. Shock Corridor (1963)


Described by American film critic Andrew Sarris as a "Baroque B-picture," Samuel Fuller's "Shock Corridor" manages to contain the aesthetic of older Hollywood films. Released in 1963, this psychological drama exemplifies Fuller's edgy and oft controversial style. The film centers on Johnny Barrett, an ambitious journalist bent on winning a Pulitzer Prize. To achieve this feat, he concocts a plan to fake insanity to get into a mental hospital so that he can solve an unsolved murder. The mental institution (and the film itself) is allegorical of America in 1963. From the red scare to race wars to cold war anxieties, there was a vast array of insane mechanisms driving Americans to the brink of insanity. The film reflects the boiling pot of fears and terror facing a contemporary American landscape.




1. Pickup on South Street (1953)


Samuel Fuller's 1953 classic thriller "Pickup on South Street" is yet another testament and time stamp of the 1950s Cold War era in America. The film centers on a young woman who gets caught between a Communist plot to deliver a secret asset, the police trying to catch them, and a lowly pickpocket who, unaware of what he's stealing, picks her wallet containing the secret information. Safe to say, many parties did not like the involvement of the Communist aspect, including the French government who had the subject matter changed to a drug operation in the dubbed version, and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who demanded that all reference to the FBI be removed from the plot. Despite the pushback, "Pickup on South Street" remains a classic 1950s thriller with lots of influence from the popular noir movement at the time. 

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