1
Who was Sam Fuller?
He was a teenage crime reporter.
Then a hotshot Hollywood screenwriter
who gave up a life of ease
to join the United States Infantry.
He was the only soldier to have ever
stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day
who went on to re-create the battle on film.
He was a prolific fllmmaker
with a bold style,
a magnet for controversy,
a poet of the American idiom.
Sam Fuller was my father.
Before he died at the age of 85,
he wrote about his life
in a memoir titled A Third Face.
In this film you'll see friends
and admirers of Sam
reading from his memoir.
You'll see clips from his movies.
But not only that.
Last summer I found over 100
16-millimeter reels of film
under the desk in this office --
home movies and footage he shot
on the front lines during World War II.
Many of these films
have never been seen before.
Every word spoken in this film
was written by Sam Fuller,
my dad.
-[whistle blows]
-[Fuller] Quiet!
All right, roll it.
- Speed!
-[clapper board claps]
[gunshot]
Action!
[man] Well, you started in as a copyboy, I see.
[Fuller] Yeah, when I was 14.
[man 2] Freedom of the press
means freedom to tell the truth.
[man 3] The Liberty pedestal fund!
Extree! Read all about it! Extree!
[man 4] If you ask me, it's news.
[man 5] Every man wants to get
to the top of his profession.
Mine is winning the Pulitzer Prize!
If this story doesn't do it,
nothing ever will.
-[man 6] He's a newspaperman.
-[man 7] And the best!
[man 9] What about you, Griff? You gonna be
a cartoonist for a big newspaper or somethin'?
[Griff] Mm-hmm.
[man 10] That's my book.
I wrote it, baby face.
[man 10] it's the Big Red One.
[man 11] Aw, be smart.
There's nothing like the infantry.
[man 12] You're lucky you never got hurt
where it doesn't show.
[man 13] All of us got hurt
where it doesn't show.
-[man 14] It was legal.
-[woman] It was murder.
[man 14] Don't look at it that way.
[man 15] Nobody knows where we are
except the enemy.
[man 16] He was a GI retread
from World War ll.
Fought through North Africa and Sicily
and all through Europe up to Czechoslovakia.
[man 17] There are two kinds of men
on this beach --
those who are dead
and those who are about to die.
[man 18] When you lead,
you have to hurt people --
the enemy, and sometimes your own.
[man 19] If you die, I'll kill you!
[man 20] All right, everybody, on your feet.
If you can breathe, you can fight.
[man 21] War's been over for four hours.
[Buck Henry as Fuller] By the end of the '40s,
I decided that I could direct my yarns
as well as anybody else,
maybe even better.
[man 22] I got a great part for you
in my next picture.
-[boy] Bullet in head, yes?
-[man 23] Bullet in head, no.
[man 24] it's tragic to remain a living legend.
People only respect the dead.
Often I feel guilty
for taking such a long time to die.
[man 25] Every girl is beautiful,
until they kill somebody.
[man 26] I'll say one thing --
he sure knew how to die.
-[man 27] That's a white dog!
-[man 28] Julie, you got a four-legged time bomb!
[man 29] They tried to brainwash me,
but I was a bad subject.
[man 30] Give the man a cigar.
-[woman 2] So long, tiger.
-[man 31] Good luck, muffin.
[footsteps]
[Franco]
"New York City in the early '20s
seemed like a human beehive
to my 11-year-old eyes,
with hustling, bustling people everywhere
urging you forward,
vendors shouting, taxis,
double-Decker buses, trucks,
and horse-drawn carts
jockeying for position
on cobblestone streets.
Subways roaring underground,
elevated trains overhead.
New York made me dizzy with expectations.
We settled in an apartment
my mother found for us
in a modest neighborhood
on the Upper West Side
not fer from the Hudson.
We all found jobs to pull our weight
and support the family.
In those days, kids of all ages
sold newspapers on busy corners.
I asked a boy on the street where I could
find out about becoming a vendor
and getting one of those
official wooden buttons that said 'newsboy.'
'Park Row,' said the kid.
I made it down to Park Row, the heart
of the newspaper business in Manhattan
not far from the Brooklyn Bridge.
Kids were everywhere,
getting their allotments of evening newspapers
to take out into the streets to sell.
I felt right at home.
For a penny apiece
I bought copies of five dailies
with the change I had in my pocket.
I got back on the subway
and found a street corner near Grand Central.
At two cents each, the newspapers sold out
before I knew what had happened.
From then on, as soon as school
let out every afternoon,
I'd hurry downtown to Park Row
and get all the dailies I could carry
in my shoulder pouch.
Any street corner would be good enough
to hawk my papers.
When I sold out, I'd rush home
to give the profits to my mother,
have dinner, and collapse
into the bed I shared with my brothers.
Still shy of my 13th birthday,
I shoehorned my way
into the heart of the newspaper world.
On Park Row, surrounded by adults
in the high-energy pursuit of news,
I was growin' up fast, mostly learning
about the darker side of humanity.
I was burning inside to be a crime reporter,
only going through the motions of school
to please my mother.
One day I pleaded with my illustrious boss
to put me on the street
and let me cover crime stories
for the Journal.
'You're much too young, my boy,'
said Brisbane.
'You have to be at least 21
for that kind of job.
It would be irresponsible for me
to let you hang around precinct stations
or go to prisons to interview criminals.
Crime reporting is tough work.
You're far too young for it.'
'But I've tagged along with reporters.
I've been to murder scenes.
I've been to the morgue.
I've watched how they talk to the police,
to witnesses, how they get their stories.
You know how fast I am, Mr. Brisbane.
Just give me a chance. I can learn. Please.'"
John, you've got to be crazy to want to be
committed to an insane asylum to solve a murder.
Even if I don't crack this case, honey,
my experiences alone will make a book,
a play, or even a movie sale.
Every man wants to get
to the top of his profession.
Mine is winning the Pulitzer Prize.
If this story doesn't do it, nothing ever will.
The last reporter I had on this floor
was Ben Franklin.
- That egghead gave me more trouble than --
- Come on, Mr. Barrett.
Born phonies, all you newspapermen.
You came at the "make friends" hour.
"A hell of a lot of time as a crime reporter
is spent with cops,
either at the crime scene
or at the station house.
The police were essential sources
of information,
though sometimes unwilling to give reporters
a lead on a breaking story.
I used to walk from one precinct to another,
slipping sticks of chewing gum
to the desk sergeants
in exchange for something newsworthy.
After I started smoking cigars,
I'd give out cigars.
That worked much better.
When I first met him
Gene Fowler was in his late 30s,
one of the most well-known journalists
on Park Row.
I was 18, still a copyboy,
and he took me under his wing.
Hell if I know why.
Maybe because he saw in me his own
early passion for the newspaper business. "
Any chance of a replay?
Any chance of a bonus?
Any of these make the cover,
you'll get a cigar.
"Fowler was there for me
when I made reporter.
I desperately needed a father figure.
Home had become hell.
My mother and I were in constant conflict
about my lifestyle and career choice.
My coming home night after night
looking less and less like a reporter
and more and more like one of
the criminals I'd been covering
was a continual source of anxiety
and disappointment for the poor woman."
How 'bout a ride
to the morgue, Pete?
"I'd been hanging around the morgue so much
that my clothes stank of formaldehyde,
the fragrance of death
clinging to my threadbare suit.
'Why can't you get a job with a more respectable
paper with normal working hours?'
my mother asked.
'Why do you have to be out all night,
chasing around after criminals,
following the police,
hanging around the morgue?'
'Because this is my work, Mother,'
I said curtly.
'You're like a vulture.'
'I like being a vulture,' I said,
slamming the door on my way out.
To her, I was wasting my life
at a sordid job.
To me, I was fortunate enough
to spend my days and nights
at the most scintillating profession
on earth and get paid for it.
Gene was not only giving me firsthand lessons
in his incorrigible zest for life.
He was giving me valuable pointers
on being a good reporter.
'Writing is easy,' he used to say.
'All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper
until drops of blood form on your forehead.
You're on the right track now, my lad,'
Fowler said.
'But when you cover a murder case,
give your articles more spice.
Spend time alone with the criminal.
Get some personal stuff.
A story from his childhood,
anything that connects the reader.
No matter how violent the crime,
if the bastard has a pet canary
or sends love poems to his mother --
some human interest angle.
Then follow the trial step by step,
never letting up on the heart-tugging details.
If the guy ends up frying in the chair
at Sing Sing,
then write it so strong that the reader
can smell his flesh burning,
even if the criminal is a woman.'
To watch a gruesome spectacle
turns all your insides upside down.
The first execution was followed
by one after another,
until after half a dozen more
of those revolting, state-approved killings
I couldn't take it anymore.
I begged my editor
to send somebody else to Sing Sing.
'You wanted to be a crime reporter,
didn't you?' he said.
'This is how society makes murderers
pay for their crimes.
You've got to cover them, Sammy.'
'Give me anything else, even a hanging,'
I pleaded.
'Get a job in another state.
Here the bastards get the chair.'
"I knew plenty about big-city crime
and state executions...
at Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco,
and everywhere in between.
Just names on a map to me.
I figured I could hit the road and work my way
across the country as a freelance reporter.
One of my heroes, Mark Twain,
had made his business
to know about the people and places
that made this country great
by sailing the Mississippi.
[steamboat whistle blowing]
It was time for me to get a little
firsthand American experience too.
I started by hitchhiking rides
on a truck or a freight train.
I was going my way, my typewriter
tied to my backpack with a cord.
I ended up spending most of my time
with people who had no real home.
Everywhere I traveled, the poor were
trying to make the best of a nasty situation.
Even those with homes and steady jobs
lived in miserable conditions,
almost impossible to understand
with the level of affluence
we have in America nowadays.
This was the low point of the Depression,
before anyone had heard
of rural electrification,
Agricultural relief, or Social Security.
[scoffs]
I wrote articles and drew cartoons
about so many different Americans --
coal miners in West Virginia,
cowboys in Oklahoma,
crab fishermen in Louisiana,
cotton pickers in Georgia,
milk farmers in Illinois,
rail road workers in Florida.
My stuff was published regularly.
A decent check would be waiting for me
at the local newspaper office in the next city,
along with my itinerary.
'To Samuel Fuller.
Freelance.'
I was connected to my country
like never before.
Young people,
if you want to understand America,
get off your asses
and go see it for yourselves.
It's a big, breathtaking place.
My travels took me across the country
to the West Coast,
ending up in San Francisco.
There I found a temporary job
as a crime reporter at the Chronicle
and stayed for a while.
I was in Frisco in 1934
when the general strike was called.
It grew out of a labor dispute on the docks
and spread like wildfire
as the strike date approached.
Food supplies
trickled into the city,
then ceased
being delivered altogether
when trucks, trains, and ships
stopped running.
Hospitals closed their doors to the sick.
Garbage piled up on the street corners.
Public transportation
ground to a complete halt.
Public order
had totally broken down.
As a reporter in New York
I'd seen a race riot in Harlem
with people looting stores for food,
but that was nothing next to
the panic and desperation
of the 1934 strike in San Francisco.
I saw corpses in the streets
that weren't even picked up
by the city morgue.
My articles for the Chronicle
described the hunger,
the violence and anarchy I saw firsthand.
There were many angry reactions.
People thought the scenes
like those I described
just couldn't take place in America,
but they did.
It was the first time I realized
how much human behavior was controlled
by the belly, not the brain.
When people hear the growling
of their empty stomachs in their own homes,
it will soon turn into screams
heard in their own cities
and, finally, a roar
throughout their country.
At the root of a social upheaval
was poverty and hunger,
breeding discontent and hatred.
Hatred...
was also born of fear.
For a real eye-opener...
there was nothing that could surpass
the Ku Klux...
Klan meetings I covered in Little Rock."
What's that?
A sign of the invisible empire.
That's a cyclos, from the Greek word kklos.
Means "circle."
This baptizes a new organization --
the Ku Klux.
- Sounds good.
- No.
Ku Klux Klan.
Sounds more mysterious,
more menacing, more alliterative.
Ku Klux Klan. Say it.
"Ku Klux Klan."
- KKK.
- KKK.
It'll catch on quick.
"My editor at American Weekly
had sent me to the cradle of the Klan
to write a firsthand report
about their strange rituals.
I got to Little Rock and was tipped off
where the Klan held their secret meetings.
One night I found myself surrounded
by 30 KKK members
wearing white sheets
and parading around a burning cross.
It was an overwhelming spectacle
that left me depressed
and disillusioned that...
this could happen in America.
In my article about the KKK
I wrote about their hate-filled speeches,
contrasting their rancorous words
with the spectacle of a woman
in a Klan costume
nursing her newborn baby.
The woman's face was hidden
under that ridiculous pillowcase
with holes cut out for a nose and eyes.
She slowly opened the robe
to put her breast
into the mouth of the little baby,
the Ku Klux Klan members
screaming radical rubbish
while the mother gave sweet sustenance
to the infant.
My editor at the American Weekly
cut that part of the woman's nursing her baby
because it sounded so farfetched.
When I saw
the published version of my article,
I was so upset that I --
I called him to complain,
making sure the operator
reversed the charges.
'The way I wrote it
was just the way it was,' I said.
'Should've taken photos of the woman
with the baby,' said the editor.
'I'm a newspaperman, goddamn it,
not a goddamn photographer! '
My editor was right, though.
A picture...
would have made my words believable.
In fact, a photo of the Klan woman
nursing a baby
would have been more powerful
than all my words."
[chuckles]
Free, white, and Christian, huh?
Burning crosses and hiding under pillowcases
and terrorizing families.
Free, white, and Christian?
I don't know anything about that, sir.
Oh, yeah. It's always the other fella.
"Then and there I found...
a cheap camera -- [chuckles]
In a pawnshop and began taking pictures
to accompany my stories,
and I -- I was beginning to realize
that I could better convey emotions...
with words and images.
And not just any image,
but the precise image
that captured a multitude of emotions
in a frozen instant."
"What I really wanted to do
was turn out a book.
I'd started writing fiction
while I was on the road.
I was about 22 when I finished
my first novel, burn, Baby, burn!
As Clare Booth Luce once said
about the '30s,
'Anyone who isn't thoroughly confused
isn't thinking clearly.'
it was a time of chaos and bewilderment
that helped me discover in myself
a profound and unwavering commitment
to democratic principles.
Smack in the middle
of the period's upheavals,
Hollywood came calling.
I had plenty of yarns up my sleeve,
so I decided to take a trip
out to the West Coast
and finally take a serious dip
in Hollywood's seductive waters.
A few days after my arrival I had an invitation
to have lunch with Gene Fowler,
who was now at RKO.
'You oughta do fine around here, Sammy,'
he told me.
See, by 1941 I was doing
pretty well in Hollywood,
selling stories and scripts
one after the other.
Yet I considered my stay in Hollywood
as temporary.
Deep down in my heart I always dreamed
of being an editor-in-chief "
- Know what I'd do if I had a paper?
- Ah, here we go again.
"It always seemed that I had one foot in
and one foot out of the movie business.
The way they rewrote my scripts
made me increasingly dissatisfied
with just being a screenwriter.
I no longer could watch a film
without questioning
the director's judgment. "
Hey, cut down that wind.
I didn't ask for a hurricane.
"Figuring out how a particular shot
could have been improved.
Wondering why the hell
the director didn't yell 'Cut!'"
- Cut!
-[men shouting]
"Early Sunday morning,
December 7, 1041,
I was driving my car in Los Angeles
listening to the radio.
That's how I heard the news
about the attack on Pearl Harbor.
My novel, the scripts
I was doing in Hollywood,
my plans to try directing,
all of it suddenly seemed unimportant.
I went down to the US Army draft office
and got in line with all the young men
waiting there.
At 29 years old I was much older
than the average guy who decided to enlist.
Luckily they needed plenty of soldiers,
so there was no bias
against old volunteers like me.
There was a required interview
with a recruiting officer.
I requested a few weeks
before being sent off to boot camp
in order to finish up a draft of my novel.
The officer gave me extra time.
Then he asked me
why I wanted to go to war.
Hell, I certainly wasn't enlisting
with the idea of becoming a hero.
I asked if I could level with him
and he said, 'Yes,'
so I told him that sure, I was inspired by
Roosevelt's call to arms against the aggressors.
However, the prospects of military life --
being in uniform, marching,
carrying a rifle, fighting --
didn't really give me a hard-on.
What kept going through my brain
was that I had a hell of an opportunity
to cover the biggest crime story
of the century,
and nothing was gonna stop me
from being an eyewitness."
"I heard my mother shudder
when I told her I was going to be a soldier.
'My country needed me for a while,'
I reassured her,
'and everything was going to be all right.
'
The army sent me to Fort MacArthur,
near San Diego.
Like every other draftee, I had to take
a battery of standardized tests
and answer a hell of a lot of stupid questions.
When I told them about
my background in journalism,
they sent me over
to the communications department.
An officer there offered me
an assignment on the staff
of the Armed Forces newspaper.
I turned it down flat.
I'd joined the army to be
in the thick of the action,
not behind some goddamn desk.
They marched all the draftees
to a rail road station.
Never had I seen so many men
in one place, at one time.
A train was about to pull out of the station,
packed to the gills with soldiers.
Ignorant and impatient,
I walked up to the captain.
'Where are these men on the train going?'
I asked.
'Infantry! ' shouted the captain.
'I want to go with them,' I said.
'Get your ass on the train! ' he yelled,
glad to be rid of me.
In my naivet,
how could I guess the horror that lay
ahead of me and my fellow passengers?
My precipitous leap
into the infantry train
was one of the most decisive steps
of my entire life.
For Chrissakes.
The infantry.
Guys who joined the infantry,
I discovered,
came back from the war
in one of three ways --
dead...
wounded...
or crazy."
"Since we were all treated like shit,
a healthy camaraderie developed
among the recruits,
an affinity that went beyond
social and educational barriers.
You name the ethnic background,
we had it --
Irish, Jewish, Italian,
Latino, Armenian, except black.
At that time
blacks got sent to their own regiment.
We were all equal, military speaking --
the lowest of the low, a real melting pot.
When we weren't crawling on our bellies,
marching or shooting,
we got bombarded
with patriotic propaganda, slogans,music.
Everywhere were those 'We Want You' posters,
Uncle Sam's fierce eyes staring at us,
reminding us that we were
sweating our balls off
for the home of the free and the brave.
We were put on a long train and shipped
to lndiantown Gap, Pennsylvania.
It was about midnight when we arrived there,
the middle of nowhere, cold as hell,
a moonless night.
A sergeant on the platform
started yelling commands at us
as we got off the train.
'Listen up! You are now members of
the First United States Infantry Division.
It's the Big Red One! '
He was wearing a dark steel helmet.
Thanks to a solitary light in the train yard,
I saw a red '1'
reflected off the sergeant's helmet.
Soon we'd all be issued helmets like
his,
wearing them like another part of our skull,
sleeping in them, fighting in them,
dying in them."
[book closes]
"One day a jeep with two soldiers
from the 18th Command Post
drove up to our camp looking for me.
The sergeant sitting next to the driver
had orders from Colonel George A. Taylor
to bring me to his headquarters.
What could the commander of the 16th Regiment
want with me,
a recently promoted corporal in the 26th?
'Corporal Fuller reporting as requested! '
I barked it out.
'What kind of cigars do you smoke?'
asked Colonel Taylor.
'Optimos,' I said. 'Only thing
I can get ahold of over here.'
'Everything else is in your file,'
said the colonel.
'I've been reading about you.
Impressive stuff.
Reporter, novelist, movies.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Now youre gonna write for us.'
'Write what, sir?'
'A full report after every battle.
I want you to record exactly
what you've seen in your own words.
I want a detailed description
of this regiment's actions --
every combat, every movement,
every victory, every error.
Complete honesty.'
'I don't want that responsibility, Colonel,'
I said.
'Hell if I care what you want,'
he replied.
'I'm giving you a great opportunity, Fuller.
You get to observe the entire operation.
No damn corporal
has ever had the opportunity
to see a combat plan, participate in it,
then report on its execution.'
'You asked me for honesty, Colonel.
I'm giving it to you straight.
After a battle, all I wanna do
is laugh with the other guys,
get a little drunk and celebrate,
if I'm still alive.'
I felt free to refuse Colonel Taylor's offer
because I was about the lowest grade
in the army.
If they demoted me, there wasn't
a long way to go before hitting the bottom.
'Look, young man,' said Taylor, 'from now on
you're part of my regiment, the 18th.'
'But, sir --' I began.
'But nothing!' said Taylor.
'You were transferred to the 16th the minute
you got into that jeep that brought you here.
Maybe you'll change your mind
about writing for me.
Meanwhile, I want you here
at all times, Fuller.'"
"On November 8, 1942,
our outfit boarded the landing craft
that took us into Arzew Beach.
We were part of General Eisenhower's
campaign to invade Africa.
Code name.. Torch.
This would be the first
Allied assault of the war,
attempting to force the enemy
off land it had usurped.
I found myself eyeball to eyeball
with my first vision
of the horror of war.
One of our guys
was hit by a mortar charge
and was blown apart,
his head severed from his body.
It landed near me.
I had a close-up view of his shocked face,
his bulging eyes
filled with fear and surprise.
I'd seen a lot of corpses in city morgues,
so I didn't turn away.
I stared almost hypnotized
by the soldier's head,
forgetting where I was.
The shell bursts snapped me out of it.
To this day that first face of death
is imprinted on my mind
like a leaf in a fossil,
never to fade away.
The Big Red One continued to move
towards the Tunisian border --
Ousseltia Valley.
We'd become much tougher,
thanks to the battle experience.
War itself is organized insanity.
Both sides are trained to kill,
and everyone is a potential enemy.
We were given rules of conduct, but --
[chuckles] the rules were hypocritical as hell.
When you see an enemy pissing, it's still
your choice whether to shoot him or not.
Civilized wars just don't exist.
I began a journal in North Africa.
If I survived, I was gonna write
about my war experience someday.
Ah,the journal wasn't much more
than a small calendar book
full of quickly scribbled notes,
drawings, random thoughts,
and ideas for characters and stories.
I jotted down the names of dogfaces.
Many died before I could
find out much about them.
As often as I could, I wrote my mother
a letter on V-Mail stationery
or any piece of paper that was handy.
Mostly I sent her cartoons
and wrote quips
about the lighter side of infantry life.
I avoided talking about
anything violent or sad.
Telling her where we were or describing
our actions too precisely was impossible.
Survival was the one thought
that held dominion over everything else
in a doggie's universe.
In that vein, we worried
about simple, but basic things --
dry socks, edible chow, fresh water,
the runs.
I never saw anyone praying to God,
except in some Hollywood movies
after the war was over,
imagined by screenwriters
who'd never been near a battlefield.
See, there's no way
you can portray war realistically,
not in a movie or a book.
You can only capture
a very, very small aspect of it.
If you really want to make
readers understand a battle --
[chuckles]
A few pages of your book
would have to be booby-trapped.
For moviegoers
to get the idea of real combat,
you'd have to shoot at them every so often
from either side of the screen.
Casualties in the theater would be...
bad for business.
I had to kill a man for the first time.
The act begets the most basic revulsion.
I couldn't believe it was me
pulling the trigger.
Left me feeling hollow inside.
But a soldier must overcome that disgust
if he is to survive.
- Afterward, when you kill --
-[gunshot]
You're shooting the same man
over and over and over again.
Your will to survive surprises you,
eventually kicking abstract thoughts
like remorse or mercy out of your brain.
The reality is,
you're glad the other guy is dead
and you're still alive.
You become...
a killing machine."
"In July of 1043 the entire First Division
was put out to sea.
That's when we found out
our target was Sicily.
The North African landing had been kindergarten
next to the invasion of Sicily.
We were in Europe now.
This was home turf to the Duce,
backed by Hitler.
There were 300, 000 Italian and German soldiers
occupying Sicily.
Each battle was going to be fought
tooth and nail.
We'd faced the enemy, but never this
many.
For cryin' out loud,
we were in their goddamn backyard.
Psychology is an essential weapon
in wartime.
That's why we had trouble
fighting against Italians.
We didn't have the same venom for them
as we did for the Nazis.
In every outfit there were Americans
of Italian descent.
A few could even speak the language.
We had one dogface from San Francisco
who was intent on locating
his Sicilian grandmother
near Caltanisetta.
And for Chrissakes, he did.
The Sicilians usually welcomed us.
After an assault, when all the enemy soldiers
had been killed or driven away,
the villagers --
mostly women, children and old men --
would bring out the wine,
pasta, fruit, flowers.
All the young men had been called
to fight for the fascists.
Many were never coming back.
It was hard to feel contempt for civilians,
even though we knew they'd been saluting Mussolini
just a few days before our invasion.
It was a question of survival.
One day we passed a little farm
behind a stone wall.
The entire family was outside the place --
mama, grandma, grandpa, bambinos --
chanting, 'Mussolini no good!
Mussolini no good!'
We were paranoid,
suspicious of everyone and everything.
So we stopped to check out the farm,
searching the house for weapons.
There was nothing irregular.
However, when we went through the barn
behind the farmhouse,
we found a young woman, about 18,
hiding in one of the donkey stalls.
She was small and shapely,
with a pretty face, dark eyes, and black hair.
We dragged her outside,
kicking and screaming.
One of our Italian-American dogfaces
told her she had nothing to fear.
She started yelling profanities at him.
'What's her problem?' I asked.
The dogface explained that she wanted us
to kill every fascist in Sicily
and burn Mussolini alive.
'l think it's all bullshit,'
said our bilingual doggie.
The girl understood his drift
and exploded with more epithets of hate.
Suddenly she stopped
and opened her blouse.
Instead of a bra, she had soiled
medical bandages covering her breasts.
'Was she hit in the chest?'
asked our sergeant.
'No. She said a fascist raped her
and bit off her nipples.'
All of us froze, sickened at her plight.
'She's lying,' said our translator.
'Why don't you buy her story?'
'I know about these ass-kissers.
When Mussolini was riding high
they were crazy about the bastard.
Now they figure he's licked,
everybody hates him.
We're supposed to believe
that fascism never caught on in Sicily.
The hell it didn't.'
He ripped off one of her bandages.
The girl screamed.
We stared at the teeth marks
on her mutilated breasts.
In place of a nipple,
there was an ugly black-and-blue wound.
We paled and stepped back from her.
Our sergeant gently took the girl
back to her family
and gave her fresh bandages
and antiseptics.
We stood speechless.
'Okay,'growled the disbelieving,
shocked soldier.
'So I was wrong.'
Ashamed of himself,
he walked up to the girl in front of her family.
'Signor, per favore, sono molto desolato.
Molto, molto."'
"Our outfit boarded a British troop ship
one night in mid October
and shipped out of Sicily.
No one would tell us where we were going.
The ship was taking us back to Britain,
where we were to spend many months
in secret preparation
for another amphibious assault.
We didn't know it yet, but we had
an appointment on the beaches of Normandy
on Tuesday, June 8, 1944.
Real ammunition was being used
in the training sessions.
That was another good reason to concentrate.
Plenty of dogfaces
were wounded or killed in training.
I always wondered
about their families back home.
How would you react if they found out that
the killed-in-action telegram they received
was only half true,
that the bullet shrapnel was friendly fire?
'You've been rehearsing hard
for this operation,' said Colonel Taylor.
'You know your jobs by heart.
Intelligence tells us
that the people of Normandy
have fraternized with the enemy.
They did what anyone else would do
to survive four years of occupation.
Now we will be the invaders.
What they call liberation
is good for newspaper stories.
We aren't liberating anything.
We're turning things upside down.
What you've gotta tell yourselves
is that Omaha is not just a beach.
If you threw a light on it, that light
would shine all the way into Germany.
It's our doorway to the enemy.
The Nazis have had it their way
for a long time.
You have to kill them
like they've never been killed before.'
We'd fantasized that the first or second
attack waves would be the most dangerous.
We'd even joked about it.
But the joke was on us.
The first and second waves had hit the beach
with at least an element of surprise on their side.
By the time we were coming in,
the Germans were alerted to the invasion
and had time to adjust their artillery.
I swallowed a ton of saltwater
mixed with American blood
and struggled like crazy not to drown
while making our way
through those metal death traps
and around all those floating bodies.
Mortar shells started to fell like hail.
It was 200 yards from the landing craft
to Omaha Beach,
the longest distance I'd ever traveled.
Being vertical on Omaha
was an invitation to death.
God, how I ran.
In all my years as a copyboy,
my legs never moved that fast.
The dead and the wounded lay everywhere,
bodyparts strewn across the sand.
I saw a man's mouth --
just the mouth, for Christ's sakes --
floating in the water.
I got hit by a bullet in my chest
as we fought our way towards Saint-L.
Everyone got hurt one way or another.
You pretended that your wound was
nothing more than a little hole in your body.
If you were as lucky as I was,
the bullet missed the vital organs,
and you survived.
Advancing towards Mons,
we moved cautiously into Belgium
through the countryside on September 3.
I really didn't know about
the Belgian border crossing until that night
because there were no markers
in the forest.
In Mons we mopped up
small enclaves of enemy troops
and continued moving east.
On one of the supply trucks from France
was a care package from my mother
with a fresh supply of cigars --
manna from heaven
in that inhospitable place.
She wrote me that The Dark Page
had won some award
as the best psychological novel of 1943.
She included a letter from my agent,
Charlie Feldman,
who was talking with Howard Hawks
about buying the book's movie rights.
Looking around our camp,
I couldn't help smiling.
It didn't seem possible that Hollywood
could be on the same planet,
much less in the same goddamn galaxy
as that rain-soaked Belgian forest.
The news from the West Coast
made me feel lucky.
I'd been through three amphibious assaults
and somehow survived.
The war had to end someday.
Maybe my luck would continue
and I'd survive to write more books.
Especially one from the point of view
of a lowly infantryman."
Ah, be smart.
There's nothing like the infantry.
You're in a plane, and you get hit.
What happens? You still gotta fall.
Two strikes against you.
You're in a ship, you get hit,
you can still -- you can still drown.
In a tank, you can fry like an egg.
But in the infantry,
you get hit and that's it.
One thing or the other --
you're dead or alive.
But you're on the ground.
Get wise. Nothing like the infantry.
"Pushing through the breach
in the Siegfried Line,
the stage was set
for the final assault on Aachen,
the first German city we'd attack.
Aachen was in a rich valley,
surrounded by wood-covered ridges
that bristled with enemy mortars,
artillery, snipers, and machine guns.
The plan was to surround the city
in preparation for a coordinated invasion.
So the nearby towns had to be taken.
One by one, they fell.
But in each one,
we ran into heavy resistance.
Our next objective
was the Ruhr River crossing
east of Aachen.
We began a nonstop marathon
that was not to end
until the Rhine had been reached.
Miraculously,
our outfit was invited
one cold and rainy night
for a USO show that was in the area.
Exhausted, dark faces suddenly forgot
all about weather and weariness
because the mistress of ceremony
that night
was the one-and-only Marlene Dietrich.
When the show was over,
I ran around to the stage door entrance.
An MP stopped me.
Backstage was off-limits.
I told him I had to speak with Miss Dietrich
about a professional matter.
'Forget it,' the MP snarled.
'Get back to your outfit.'
He wasn't getting rid of me so easily.
I rushed over and stuck my head
in the half-open door.
' it'll only take a minute, Miss Dietrich.'
[chuckles]
Surprised but cordial,
she invited me
into a cold, damp dressing room.
The only light came from a bare light bulb
dang ling from the high ceiling.
I apologized about my appearance.
I looked like hell.
I was unshaven.
My uniform was filthy.
My boots were muddy.
I must have stunk too.
But Dietrich didn't seem to mind at all.
Shed probably seen worse
on her tour of frontline troops.
'Miss Dietrich,' I told her,
'I'd like you to take a message from me
back home.'
'Impossible,' she said.
She explained that she'd met many soldiers
who wanted her to phone their mothers
and their girlfriends.
But she just couldn't do it,
and she told everyone the same thing.
It was really impossible.
I said I didn't want her to phone my mother.
I wanted her to deliver a one-word message
to Charlie Feldman in Hollywood.
'Charles K. Feldman?'
she asked, suddenly intrigued.
'My agent? You know him?'
'Yes, Miss Dietrich,' I said.
'He's my agent too.'
She stopped dead and gazed at me.
'He's your agent too?'
'Yeah, he is.
He sold my book to Howard Hawks.
A novel called The Dark Page.
The message for Charlie is easy,
Miss Dietrich.
One word -- cigars.
Just say cigars to Charlie
when you get back to Hollywood, okay?'
She laughed
and poured us both a good brandy.
'What's your name, soldier?'
'Fuller. Samuel Fuller.'
She asked me to write it down.
I refused.
'My name's not necessary,' I told her.
'Just say cigars to Charlie.
He'll know what it is.'
'Okay, soldier,' she said,
clinking glasses with me.
A box of good cigars arrived by APO
from Charlie Feldman that spring.
Dietrich had damn sure
delivered my message.
In '53, I'd run into Marlene Dietrich
once again
under very different conditions.
I was in New York at a nightclub.
At a table across the big room
was the legendary producer Sam Spiegel.
He waved at me.
I went over to say hello.
Sitting next to Spiegel was Dietrich.
He introduced us.
I told her we'd already met.
She was very polite,
but she shook her head,
not remembering me
or where we'd run into each other.
'Too bad,' I said. 'That's life.'
I turned and started back to my table.
All of a sudden,
Marlene Dietrich was right behind me.
'Hey, soldier,' she said,
her eyes twinkling.
I turned and grinned at her.
She put her arms around me.
Tears were running down her cheeks.
She'd heard so many stories
about all the men killed in our outfit,
yet here I was, alive.
She was genuinely pleased to see me again.
-[men cheering]
- Hello, boys.
She'd given over 500 shows
for GI's during the war,
but there was only one little corporal
trying to squeeze some cigars
out of Charlie Feldman
back in Hollywood."
[chuckles]
"By the end of April, 1045,
we'd advanced all the way into
the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia.
Six years earlier, in 1030,
Hitler had first shown his true colors
as an empire-building, nation-crushing tyrant.
Nobody discouraged Nazi aggression
at the time.
Now the war to stop Hitler
had come full circle,
back to its birthplace.
The cease-fire of May 7 was universal.
We moved into Falkenau that night
and were slapped in the face,
first by hordes of Germans
streaming into town from Karlsbad,
fleeing the Russians
in order to surrender to the Americans.
More than 45, 000 POWs moved
through Falkenau in the next three days,
creating the monumental job
of hand ling all those people.
The most profound shock awaited us
as we entered the front gate
of the Falkenau concentration camp
only a few thousand yards from the town.
There were a few die-hard SS at the camp
who didn't know the war was over.
They fired at us and tried to make
a break for it in the command car.
One of our doggies hit the car
with a bazooka,
ending their escape
in a fiaming mushroom of fire and smoke.
We ran down the remaining Nazis
and disarmed them.
What had been happening
in that concentration camp
was beyond belief,
beyond our darkest nightmares.
We were overwhelmed to come face-to-face
with all the carnage.
I still tremble to remember those images.
of the living hunkered down with the dead.
The stench of rotting bodies
welled up in your face
and made you want to stop breathing.
One final vision of horror awaited us.
The crematorium.
When we burst into that building,
smoke from the grenades
we'd thrown through the windows
filled the room.
Silent now,
the row of steel doors to the ovens
stretched in front of us.
I stared at the ovens
and then looked into the first one.
When I saw the remains
of the cremated bodies in there,
I couldn't control my revulsion.
I vomited and wanted out of there
at any cost.
But I couldn't stop myself
from looking into the second oven,
then the third,
mesmerized by the impossible.
For Chrissakes, people had actually
been cooked in those ovens.
The incontrovertible proof
lay right in front of my own eyes.
Captain Richmond ordered
a delegation of townspeople
to appear at the gates of the camp
the next morning
to face a firing squad.
Richmond was going to make sure
that these people found out
what had been happening
only a few steps from their front doors.
Richmond knew my mother had sent me
a handheld Bell and Howell
18-millimeter movie camera.
The captain wanted me
to position myself the next day
on a wall overlooking
the concentration camp
to film the gruesome spectacle.
I was about to make my first movie.
The ending of all hostilities
was a quiet shock.
I couldn't believe I didn't have to sleep
with my hand on my rifle anymore,
that every noise wasn't the start
of an enemy attack,
that I could light a cigar at night
without worrying about a sniper
putting a bullet through my brain.
We'd be going home soon.
Rejoining civilization
was all we'd ever been talking about,
joking about, dreaming about.
But reentry was scary too.
How could we tell the world
about what we'd experienced,
about what we'd witnessed?
How could we live with ourselves?
I have few regrets about my life,
but one of them concerns
the Nuremberg Trials.
Behind each Nazi prisoner at Nuremberg
was a guard.
Those guards were soldiers
from my outfit, the Big Red One.
The military was screening candidates
for that assignment,
and I went off to Paris
to visit my brother Ray.
I'd already promised him
that I'd meet him in Paris,
and there was no way in hell
I'd let him down.
But what a missed opportunity.
I could have watched
the Nuremberg Trials in person. "
"Our troop ship finally sailed from Marseilles,
docking in Boston in late September, 1045.
I took a train to New York to see my mother
for the first time in four years.
Though it was good beyond words
to put my arms around her again,
it became quickly evident
that my homecoming
was burdensome for me
and everyone around me.
I spent a hell
of a lot of time in bed,
but couldn't sleep
for long stretches.
Horrible nightmares kept rattling my head.
Everyday sounds made me jump
and shake uncontrollably.
I was a textbook case of war hysteria. "
Right after the war,
I nearly fell apart
every time I heard
a cup rattle a dish.
"I needed to somehow
start earning a living again.
By the end of the '40s, I decided that I
could direct my yarns as well as anybody else.
Maybe even better.
Sure, I was still happy
working behind a typewriter,
but now I started looking
for an opportunity
to direct a picture of my own,
using a motion picture camera
to tell the tale.
All I needed was a producer
who'd put his faith in me,
and just when I needed him,
Robert L. Lippert showed up in my life.
In 1949, I made I Shot Jesse James for him.
And we closed the deal on a handshake
because he liked my yarn.
When the movie unexpectedly
made some dough for Lippert,
he shared the profits with me
exactly as we'd agreed.
And we went on
to make several pictures together.
Now the offers came streaming in
from the majors.
I met with all the studio heads.
When I first met Darryl Zanuck,
he was already a mogul.
The only mogul who didn't talk about
money.
'What story you want to make next, Sammy?'
he asked me.
Holy smokes, that was a question
I'd been waiting to hear.
More than any other studio head,
Darryl loved stories.
That made me love the guy
from the first moment I met him.
Darryl would act out scenes with me.
He'd even get on the floor
when there was a body in the script.
lf he said, 'Okay, let's do it,'
your picture was in production.
My deal with Darryl was for six pictures.
Half a year, I'd work for Fox.
The other half, I could do anything I wanted.
A new period of creativity and accomplishment
was dawning.
Throughout the '50s,
I got offers to direct big movies,
adapted from best-selling books
with major stars attached.
One after another I turned them down
for a variety of personal
and professional reasons.
In general, making less expensive movies
meant maintaining my independence,
avoiding the studios
tampering with my scripts,
imposing their casting and editing choices."
[announcer] Gene Evans
as America's great fighting editor
in the first terrific struggle
for the most famous street in the world,
Park Row.
"Maybe it was a fatal career flaw,
but small-budget independence
was more appealing to me
than all the thunder of major productions.
In Hollywood,
the artistic climate was appalling.
Studios were factories
grinding out safe movies
like bland sausages,
anxious to please right-wing review boards,
scrutinizing all material
for suspicious ideas."
But you wouldn't
sell him to a Commie.
What do you think I am, an informer?
"In 1950, the McCarran Act
led straight to Hollywood's front door
because the infamous Senator
Joseph Raymond McCarthy of Wisconsin
exploited it to uncover
Communist influence in the arts."
What's the matter with you?
Playing footsies with the Commies.
[scoffs] You wavin' the flag too?
"The FBI chief, J. Edgar Hoover,
was very perturbed
about Pickup on South Street
and wanted to see Zanuck and me about it.
A lunch meeting was set up at Romanoff's.
The FBI chief told me he didn't care
for The Steel Helmet or Fixed Bayonets,
but that Pickup on South Street
had gone much too far.
First of all, he didn't like the hero
doing business
with both Communists and Americans.
'How could an American think only about money
at a time like this in our history?'
Hoover asked.
'He doesn't give a damn about history,'
I explained.
'He's an outlaw.
The guy's only motivation is to score.'
What Hoover hated the most was the scene
when the FBI agent
asks the pickpocket to cooperate. "
if you refuse to cooperate,
you'll be as guilty
as the traitors that gave Stalin
the A-bomb.
Are you waving a flag at me?
"Said Hoover, quoting from the script.
'What kind of thing is that
for an American to say?'
'That's his character,' I replied.
' if it were another character,' I explained,
'he might say, By God,
I'd do anything for my country.'
Hoover was like some of the biased critics
I've run into over the years.
They look at everything exclusively
from their own perspective.
If a movie is in line with their position,
it's good.
If it's out of line, it's bad.
Hell, a writer has to write
from a character's viewpoint.
I explained to Hoover that if I write
believable dialogue for an unpatriotic character,
it doesn't make me un-American.
It's not me talking. it's my character.
The power that Hoover wielded back then
was incredible.
The truth about the formidable FBI chief
wouldn't be known until many years later.
And there he was,
questioning my integrity and honesty,
while he was blackmailing people
to keep himself in power."
[Constance Towers]
"My tale is full of human foible
and confusion.
With many pictures under my belt,
now established
as a writer-director in Hollywood,
I should have been sleeping peacefully
under those silk sheets
in my big house in Beverly Hills.
Nothing could have been further
from the truth.
I tossed and turned all night long,
wracked by horrific nightmares.
Music was my immediate remedy.
I got up, went downstairs,
and immersed myself in Beethoven,
Bach, or Mozart.
See, music is an essential part
of every picture I make."
[Beethoven's Fifth Symphony playing]
"Before photographs and movies,
people were listening to music
and getting strong emotional messages.
When I write,
I visualize what I want to happen
on the screen
and imagine the accompanying music.
I can actually see the action
and dialogue better
by adding music early in the script."
[Beethoven's Fifth Symphony
continues playing]
[gunflre]
"There is no end in art.
Every accomplishment
is the dawn of the next challenge.
Seize your audience by the balls
as soon as the credits hit the screen
and hang onto them.
Smack people right in the face
with the passion of your story.
Make the public love your characters
or hate them,
but for Gods sakes, never --
never leave them indifferent.
Maybe you do a picture
to exorcise old demons.
Then your yarn makes you start
grinding your teeth all over again,
tormented by images that you've concocted.
I was lucky.
At critical moments in my life,
role models like Terry Allen and John Ford
took me under their wings
and kept me from derailing,
showing me how to be a mensch.
I was afflicted early on
by an irresistible longing to roam.
Even today, no matter how luxurious
or cozy the roof over my head,
I'd leave it behind in a flash
for the chance to travel
to some exotic locale,
especially to make a movie.
Hell, I guess I'm really
a goddamn tramp at heart.
Packing up my cigars and my Royal,
I was on my way.
It was late September, 1985,
when I arrived in Paris. "
I'm an American film director.
My name is Samuel Fuller.
I'm here to make a picture in Paris
called Flowers of Evil.
"During the day I worked
on my Flowers of Evil script.
In the evening I met Christa.
She really knew her way around Paris. "
Don't you wait for a man
to open the door for you?
The last time a man opened the door for me,
we were going 60 miles an hour.
[Towers] "I was getting invited
to all kinds of openings,
parties, and cultural events.
Christa was constantly at my side.
She enjoyed the socializing.
All the attention being showered on me
was flattering at first,
but it began to wear thin.
When I got back to Hollywood,
reality came hurtling down upon me.
People think Hollywood
is a heartless and a destructive place.
I don't believe that crap.
The studio boys could take a movie
away from me,
but they couldn't take away my optimism.
I was chock full of ideas,
determined to do whatever was needed
to support my young wife.
Blaming the motion picture business
was useless.
Jotting down ideas constantly in a little
notebook I kept with me day and night,
I continued writing new stories,
researching current events,
reading history books,
coming up with ideas almost every day.
I had over 100 titles registered
with the Writers Guild,
some with entire scripts already written,
some based on stories or treatments,
and some... just titles
for future development.
Developing a piss-cutter of a movie
from scratch...
was what I loved doing most."
"By the mid-'80s, America's mood
changed drastically.
Our society was in upheaval.
For crying out loud,
it seemed like a perfect time
for me and my ballsy yarns.
Of course, life doesn't always work out
the way you think it will.
Rather than prolific,
the '60s turned out to be tough going.
I resorted to my tramping ways,
going wherever in the world a producer
would back one of my projects.
Even then, I didn't make
half the movies I wanted to.
One of the tricks I've learned
is to tap constantly
into my creative juices,
no matter if there's a producer
to finance a movie or not.
When you're least expecting it,
one will show up.
You damn well better be ready
to pull a script you really love
out of your desk drawer.
You see, I had to keep making movies.
It was in my blood, after all these years.
Now, I was a tough guy to be married to,
but somehow we made it work,
realizing right away
that it takes two to tango.
One day I ran into Lee Marvin.
'Sammy,' said Lee,
'when are you gonna do The Big Red One?'
Marvin knew about the precious movie
that I'd been working on all those years.
I'd kept him in the loop.
'You'll be my sergeant,' I said,
making a promise I'd never break.
There were just two projects
I wanted to focus on now --
the baby that Christa was about to have
and The Big Red One,
the movie that I had to find a way
to give birth to.
Christa's pregnancy went to term
without a glitch.
At the age of 83,
I'd become a father for the first time.
I'd never felt more ambitious or energetic.
Nothing and no one could ever get me down.
I wanted my little girl
to be proud of her daddy.
The Big Red One was an official entry
at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival.
Even in its drastically cut version,
critics called it
one of the best war movies ever made.
But my problem in Hollywood
was that power and money
never gave me a hard-on.
I'd put my life on the line
to stand up for democracy,
fighting fascism
because it was antagonistic
to the Jeffersonian principles
that all men are created equal.
I was one of the first directors in Hollywood
to use actors of color
in intelligent, complex roles.
The black medic in The Steel Helmet.
Nat King Cole's sensitive soldier
in China Gate.
Hari Rhodes' twisted college dropout
in Shock Corridor.
James Shigeta's detective,
who gets the gal
in The Crimson Kimono.
After depicting the little guy
and his right to be different
in movie after movie,
no matter what economic status or race,
I thought I'd made my position
on equality crystal clear. "
I understand you're an "I-talian,"
Vinci.
How come they let a wop
in this man's army?
I don't think a wop's gonna flight a wop.
I think all you'll do is drink dago red
and sing "'O Sole Mio."
[laughs]
'O sole mio
[men joining in] La-la, la-la
"To my amazement and consternation,
rumors began to circulate
that my upcoming film, White Dog,
was a racist movie,
even before the picture
had been previewed in public.
Paramount hadn't set a release date yet.
A meeting was called.
As soon as I sat down
in their conference room,
they dropped the bomb.
They were gonna shelve my film.
I was deeply hurt.
The studio had used me as a scapegoat
for their lack of determination and courage.
Nightmares made sleeping hellish."
I have the nightmare all the time.
"In my bad dreams,
I became characters in my movies.
Sometimes the old Indian
in Run of the Arrow,
who is scorned by the young braves.
Sometimes the commanding general
in Merrill's Marauders,
trekking through the jungle
with his soldiers.
Sometimes Johnny Barrett,
trapped in an asylum
in Shock Corridor.
I woke up before dawn,
soaked from my own sweat,
as if I'd been running
from a vicious white dog.
[growling]
[gunshots]
I became like a foreigner
in my own country.
In France, by contrast,
I was always treated with esteem.
I loved strolling in Paris,
where every corner, square, and quarter
was steeped in history.
And what a violent history it was.
My long life had run parallel
with most of the 20th century,
intersecting with some
of the memorable characters
and momentous upheavals.
I'd seen my fellow Americans
at their best and at their worst.
Their enthusiasm, ingeniousness,
and sheer industry
are truly remarkable.
Yet into the fabric of my times
have been woven
devastating world wars,
poverty and ignorance,
social rifts based on race,
and wealthy, psychopathic hate groups
like the Ku Klux Klan. "
- Keep our schools white!
- Keep 'em white! That's right!
- I'm against Catholics!
- Hallelujah, man! Hallelujah!
- Against Jews!
- Hallelujah!
- Against niggers!
- Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
There's one!
Let's get that black boy
before he marries my daughter!
- Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
- Hallelujah!
[shouting]
"For me, the hate-mongers
and reactionaries
are the most loathsome thorns
in the eye of a great democracy.
Every generation will have their own,
and they must be fought
and defeated.
I've never lost my ardor for history
and its illuminations.
Nor have I ever mislaid my optimism.
Living on the edge of Hollywood
for so many years,
physically and spiritually,
I remain, to this day,
an outsider.
As for life, I always plunged in headfirst,
without worrying about failure.
If there's one reason
to recount my personal history,
something inspirational
that I'd like my life experiences
to offer you,
be you young or young at heart,
then it would be to encourage you
to persist with all your heart and energy
in what you want to achieve,
no matter how crazy
your dreams seem to be to others.
Believe me, you'll prevail
over all the naysayers and bastards
who are telling you it just can't be done.
Okay, now, all you voices.
Let yourselves be heard."
[Fuller] Cut! Did you get it?
[inhales]
[door closes]
[no audible dialogue]
[no audible dialogue]
[no audible dialogue]
[no audible dialogue]
If I had to pick an adjective
to describe Sam Fuller,
it would be "exuberant."
Sam, Sam, Sam.
There wasn't a moment in any film I did with him
that I didn't feel him thinking with me,
talking to me,
being as much a part of the emotion
as I was.
You're still with us, Sam.
There is no keeping you down.
Not the naysayers, you know,
no matter who they may be.
You have helped
a lot of young people already
give voice to their dreams, Sam.
And with what you've written here,
there'll be many more, I'm sure.
[man] See, you've got three faces
The first you're born with
The one in the mirror
That feels Mama's kiss
Papa's ruby cheeks
Thin lips like me
A set of crooked chops
From your genealogy
The second is created by your ingenuity
The one that shows passion
And your sensitivity
Downcast when times are rough
Cold with confusion
Charming and sweet
When seduction is the treat
New York, San Francisco
Plenty good yarns he had in store
That's what he lived for
That's what he lived for
Then there's the third face
No one can see
Not in the mirror
Not lovers, just me
Privy to your deepest fears
Hopes and dreams
Guarding secrets for all eternity
The third remains hidden
From your dearest loved one
A mystery of life Ill ponder till I'm done
That's how we survive
Glory and pain
A piece of yourself always to remain
New York, San Francisco
Plenty good yarns he had in store
That's what he lived for
That's what he lived for
That's what he lived for
[song ends]