Re: RARA-AVIS: Sam Fuller

Etienne Borgers (etienne@singnet.com.sg)
Thu, 22 Jan 1998 16:54:19 +0800 (SGT) >On Wed, 21 Jan 1998, Dixon H. Chandler II quoted:
>
>: >Street of No Return. 1989. Dir: Sam Fuller Cast: Keith Carradine
>
>Speaking of Sam Fuller, I was reading a short bio of him the other day
>that leads me to a question. Apparently Fuller's life wasn't far from
>Willeford's: he rode the rails in the Depression, wrote some pulp
>novels in the '30s, fought in Europe in the war and won a number of
>decorations, held various jobs here and there, and then settled into
>movies (whereas Willeford settled down to teaching and writing, more
>or less). The thing on Fuller described his novels as hardboiled, and
>I wonder if anyone here knows anything about them.

>Bill
>--
>William Denton

I'll try to contribute to the thread by answering two questions raised here
by followers.

1/ Fuller, film director
Last film directed by Sam Fuller is indeed 'Sans Espoir de Retour' -Street
of No Return/ 1989, but he didn't script it. This is a French production and
script was done by Jacques Bral, based of course on the top novel by David
Goodis.
The French title is the title given to Goodis' book when it was published in
France
in 1956 (original American publishing: 1954)
Fuller was living in France at the end of his life.

2/ Bill's question about Fuller as a writer.
Apart from writing scripts for Hollywood during the 30's and early 40's, and
later some of his own films'scripts, Fuller was writing novels as well.
Not only some novelization of his films, but some original novels were
published by this talented author, best known as a first class film director.
Apart from some action/adventure novels, his HB mystery novels include:
The Dark Page - 1944- one of his bests
I do not have all my references here, so I'm not too sure about the genre of
the following novel by Fuller:
144, Picadilly

One novelization by Fuller, of one of his films, was particularly well done
and was successful as a mystery/ HB book at the time:
Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street- 1974

To note: another novelization, 'Shock Corridor' - melodramatic and Noir ,
was done by Michael Avallone (prolific writer in many genres, including Noir
and HB) and made Fuller angry; he tried to stop Avallone's book for
plagiarism. It is still published, but with both of them in the credits.

There is an interesting book on Sam Fuller:
SAM FULLER: FILM IS A BATTLE GROUND by Lee Server

Hope the above will help.

E.Borgers
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6384

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