<<"The Naked Kiss" is a freak of noir nature, like
almost all of
Fuller's pictures ... they're unique and idiosyncratic,
that's why he's
such an auteur. The most traditional noir he probably ever
did was
"Pickup On South Street," or "Underworld, USA," the latter
being closer
to the gangster genre.>>
It's been a long time, but I do remember The Naked Kiss as a
terrific
movie. This is the Cainian version; the longer version
follows.
The truth is that I saw it when I was in my late teens and
pompously
held the opinion that Alan Resnais, Jean Luc Godard,
Marguerite Duras,
and Alain Robbe-Grillet were cool and guys like Fuller were
hacks. Not
surprisingly, I thought TNK was a terrible film. However, to
this day I
haven't forgotten that first time I saw it, while my
recollections of
encountering "Muriel", "Marienbad", and similarly "deep"
films from the
Nouvelle Vague are vague* and the desire to see them again,
nonexistent.
I also want to mention that Sam Fuller was early on a
pulpster who wrote
short stories and novels in the crime genre. The one story
I've read, in
the Barnes and Noble collection "Pulp Fictions" (I said
something about
it here), is very good and totally coherent with Fuller's
film style.
Regards,
Mario Taboada
*Except when I was accompanied by some special chick, of
course. With
this, er, physical criterion for cinematic memorability, I
would have to
deem _Beach Blanket Bingo_ an unalloyed masterpiece.
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