Street of No Return (Fantoma)
Picture: B Sound: B Extras: B Film: B-
What is it about Samuel
Fuller’s work that becomes so addicting?
Well, for one his films are so sincere even when they are so absurd and
out-there. He attacks every detail so
effectively that despite the content, which often times are political or social
issues, it comes across convincing and powerful. With that in mind comes his last film, which would be Street of No Return (1989).
Fullers final hoorah is
blatant, stylish, and just what you would expect with all the Fuller
characteristics running on all cylinders.
What you have to appreciate most about Fuller is that even in his final
film he does not bow out to the critical and commercial success that he never
wanted or garnered, but instead kept his artistic freedoms even up until his
last piece. While Street of No
Return is certainly not his best work, it does remain and interesting one
at that. The story is based on the
crime novel by David Goodis, in which Keith Carradine stars as a former pop
star, who had the good life until he made the mistake of falling for the wrong
girl. That girl happens to be involved
with a gangster, who ends up pulling his world over on him and causing him to
be nothing but a washed up drifter suffering from amnesia and alcoholism. His
only chance at cracking his daze is to seek vengeance on those that put him in
his newfound situation.
Fantoma has issued Street of No Return to DVD and also did
a fantastic job on Tigrero: A Film That
Was Never Made, which stars Fuller and Jim Jarmusch and is a documentary
about a film Fuller never had the chance to finish in 1954. Like their efforts there, Fantoma does a
good job here presenting the film in its native 1.78 X 1 aspect ratio, which has
been anamorphically enhanced. The
soundtrack has been remixed for Dolby 5.1 playback, which sounds slightly
dated, but overall quite good. This was
taken from the films initial Dolby SR system.
Both the image and sound are quite pleasing for this being a smaller
company releasing a relatively unknown film.
Colors are fairly balanced well; actually the film has a grim look,
which was no doubt a Fuller intention to make it look as nasty and gritty as
possible.
As for the extras,
Carradine does a great job on the commentary track really emphasizing what it
was like working with Samuel Fuller, which is somewhat touched on as well
during the 33-minutes behind-the-scenes for the film. It is great having stuff
like this since Fuller is no longer around and while this does not have the
insightfulness as some of the extras included on Pickup on South Street from Criterion, it is still very good to
have. There is a text interview section
with Fuller, but I find these usually pretty boring, especially since Sam is
the type of person who you love to listen to because of the way he says things,
not necessarily what he says. Also
included is the original trailer, which is quite odd in nature, and a nice
liner notes section by Lee Server who is the author of Sam Fuller: Film is a Battleground.
While Street of No
Return is not the type of film you watch and then the following day you
can’t shut up about it with all your co-workers or friends, it is certainly a
film worth seeing once and for fans of Fullers work in general you will be
quite happen at all the work brought forth here to make his final film
available and with some nice extras to make it a nice big bang… Sam Fuller
style!
- Nate Goss
