construction heightens the clarity and emotional impact of the narrative in a more subtle fashion than other options adopted later by Fuller. During sequences dominated by long takes, Fuller uses character blocking, camera movement, and depth staging to create new compositions within the same shot, renewing visual interest and punctuating plot points in the absence of editing.
The primary staging strategies in The Baron of Arizona are illustrated by a scene midway through the film when Reavis is confronted in his office first by a railroad executive and then by landowners and a newspaperman. The three-minute, seven-second scene begins with a two-minute long take, as Gunther of Southern Railroad (Joseph Green) arrives to negotiate with Reavis for the right-of-way to run his railroad. Within the long take, five distinct compositions emerge, as the camera tracks and pans to follow the movement of the two characters around the edge of the room and into and out of depth. Pauses in camera movement, positioning of Reavis and Gunther within the frame, and their frontality (or lack of it) mark shifts in the conversation and guide the viewer’s eye within the long take. After Gunther and Reavis shake hands on their financial deal, the long take cuts to a new sequence organized analytically, as a large group of landowners barge in on Reavis and Gunther demanding to know the status of their land rights. The scene ends with a reporter telling Reavis that he is going to be written up as the man who changed geography; the camera tracks in and tilts up to capture a close-up of Reavis’s reaction, as he puts his cigar in his mouth, raises his eyebrow, and beams.
In a publicity still from The Baron of Arizona, the territory’s men and Gunther of Southern Railroad (Joseph Green, center) question Addison Reavis (Vincent Price, foreground, right of center) about his ambitions. In this portion of the scene, Fuller uses analytical editing to highlight the men’s reactions to Reavis’s growing dominance. Author’s collection
The completely different staging strategies utilized in the two halves of this scene neatly divide the sequences and function in different ways. The long take that opens the scene captures two businessmen who are financial equals and reveals the breadth of Reavis’s ambition as Gunther roams around the office and explores all of Reavis’s financial interests. The second half of the scene unfolds as a confrontation, and analytical editing enables attention to be appropriately directed across a large number of characters. In this sequence, editing and changing shot scales provide progressively tighter or wider framings depending on the dialogue. Reaction shots are particularly prominent, as characters digest the significance of their situations and what they have learned. Reavis’s location in the center foreground of the wider shots gives him prominence within the frame and emphasizes his position of power, a stature that is reinforced by the track in to his expression of glee in the final shot of the scene. Long takes with camera and character movement and analytically edited scenes form the foundation of Fuller’s visual style in The Baron of Arizona and remain key staging strategies throughout his career, particularly during his years at Twentieth Century–Fox.
As with the dialogue scenes, the staging of action-oriented sequences in The Baron of Arizona advances to a new level. The attack of the mob and attempted lynching of Reavis is the visual high point of the film and the most complicated action sequence Fuller had yet directed. Here many of the stylistic strategies utilized in the opening and closing of I Shot Jesse James are further developed, producing a scene of dark chaos and palpable kineticism. As in the opening of I Shot Jesse James, the attempted lynching scene in The Baron of Arizona begins in tense anticipation, as Griff, Alvarez, Reavis, Sophia, and her governess ride into an eerily quiet town square. In a series of quick cuts, Fuller reveals to the viewer what the group is unaware of: a mob of local landowners is hiding in the darkness. Fearing the mob will attack Reavis’s wagon, we wait in suspense, until an offscreen gunshot breaks the silence and changes the entire mood of the scene.
As the mob runs at the wagon from all sides, Fuller orchestrates a rhythmic pattern of graphic contrasts that emphasizes the entrapment of Reavis and his loved ones. The pacing of the editing picks up as the mob runs in low angles first into the right foreground, then into the left foreground, followed by medium-close-up reaction shots of Reavis, Sophia, and Alvarez. The same pattern is repeated again, only this time the mob carries torches: the mob runs to the foreground right, the mob runs to the foreground left, then the three reaction shots. The juxtaposition of contrasting screen direction suggests a clashing of opposing forces, heightening the sense that Reavis, Sophia, and Alvarez are surrounded by danger. Their reaction shots confirm this impression, focusing attention on their fear and bewilderment as the landowners physically attack them. The rest of the scene follows Reavis, Sophia, and Alvarez as they escape from the mob and barricade themselves in Reavis’s office until a battering ram breaks the door down, and the landowners attempt to string up Reavis. James Wong Howe’s chiaroscuro lighting plays a dominant role in creating a mood of terror, as the flames from the torches fill the darkened frame and the shadow of the noose is cast across Reavis’s wall-size map of Arizona. Mob scenes appear in a number of other Fuller pictures (House of Bamboo, Verboten!, The Crimson Kimono, The Naked Kiss, and Street of No Return), providing the local community’s reaction to the central events in the story, although not always in so violent a fashion. This mob scene is strikingly designed to emphasize movement and conflict within in the frame, two stylistic strategies that are central to Fuller’s goal of generating physical and emotional responses in the viewer.
Although The Baron of Arizona was Lippert’s attempt at a “prestige” release, it lacked many of the selling points that helped to insure success for a historical picture at the box office, such as an origin in a successful literary property, star power, or color cinematography. The film followed a similar distribution strategy as I Shot Jesse James, but the difference in the nature of the film and its lack of marketable elements doomed it to a much less successful run. The Baron of Arizona premiered in Phoenix in March 1950 and played first-run houses to fair returns through June, eventually limping toward a disappointing one-week run at the Palace in New York and appearing on the bottom half of first-run double bills by July.22 While reviewers noted that the film was clearly Lippert’s most expensive and ambitious effort to date, Variety suggested that the decision to focus on character rather than action undermined the picture’s potential for success: “In so doing, it defeats its purpose in the market where Lippert releases usually play. Outlook for good returns in the general situation appears slim.”23 The box office mirrored Variety’s prediction, and The Baron of Arizona eventually was outperformed by Lippert’s shorter and more moderately budgeted science-fiction effort of that year, Rocketship X-M (1950).24
Fuller publicly expressed his dissatisfaction with the way The Baron of Arizona turned out, especially with the supervision of producer Hittleman. While Lippert clearly intended The Baron of Arizona to be a more prestigious entry than I Shot Jesse James, the decision to distribute the two films in an identical manner failed to capitalize on the former’s higher production values and aspirations as a costume drama; instead, its release pattern virtually guaranteed that The Baron of Arizona would disappoint audiences expecting another rousing adventure film or at least a little action. The high cost and low box-office return of The Baron of Arizona forced Lippert and Fuller to retrench for their next picture together, a decision that resulted in the most critically and commercially successful film of their partnership.
Establishing a Voice: The Steel Helmet
With The Steel Helmet, Fuller had an opportunity to take the lessons he had learned from his first two pictures and apply them to a subject he was intimately familiar with: war. The result is the first picture in which his narrative and stylistic aesthetic fully takes shape. In a retreat from the epic ambitions of The Baron of Arizona, The Steel Helmet featured the faster shooting schedule, lower budget, and shorter length of I Shot Jesse James.25 Fuller capitalized on the recent outbreak of the Korean War, quickly adapting the stories he had gathered in his diary during World War
