Mon 14 Apr 2025
A 1001 Midnights Review: SAMUEL FULLER – The Dark Page.
Posted by Steve under 1001 Midnights , Reviews[12] Comments
by Max Allan Collins
SAMUEL FULLER – The Dark Page. Duell, Sloan & Pearce, hardcover, 1944.Mercury, digest-sized paperback, 1951, as Murder Makes a Deadline. Avon, paperback, 1982. Film: Columbia Pictures, 1952, as Scandal Sheet.
Film director Sam Fuller is a stylish, iconoclastic auteur whose movies transform tabloid trash into cinematic art. The characters in his films are larger than life, their dialogue often sounding like the copy off the back of a paperback; yet the broad strokes of his scripts are turned to poetry by fluid camera work and startling visual imagery, redeeming graces his novels tend to lack.
His career as a novelist is, then, considerably less significant, although perhaps no other film-maker of his stature has written so many novels. Prior to his film-making career, Fuller wrote lurid topical tales (Burn Baby Burn, 1935; Test Tube Baby, 1936), foreshadowing such “out of the headlines” Fuller films as Pickup on South Street (1953) and Underworld USA (1960).
His later books are novelizations either of films he made (The Naked Kiss, 1963) or of films he failed to make (144 Picadilly, 1971). His claim to fame as a novelist, however, rests upon The Dark Page, a fast-moving, effective crime novel that reflects Fuller’s love for Hearst-school yellow journalism, that lurid National Enquirer style of reporting that Fuller’s movies hinge upon and transcend.
City editor Carl Chapman throws a Lonely Hearts Ball at Madison Square Garden, a cynical media event designed to boost the circulation of his paper, the Comet. At the party, which is attended by his wife, Rose (to whom he’s happily married), he encounters Charlotte, a former wife from his former, secret life. Returning with Charlotte (whom he had never divorced) to her shabby apartment, an argument ensues and Charlotte is killed, more or less accidentally.
Chapman’s star reporter, Lance McCleary, latching on to the fact that the murdered woman had attended the Lonely Hearts Ball, pursues the story vigorously, not realizing he is closing in on his mentor, editor Chapman. Chapman, too, cannot resist the headline-making story, and feels just as proud as he does threatened, as Lance’s muckraking tactics lead Chapman into further deceit and murder.
Fuller’s style in The Dark Page is lively, the melodrama made palatable by the short, choppy sentences and paragraphs that are right out of his newspaper background. Well worth reading for its own merits, The Dark Page is a fascinating footnote in the story of a major, if offbeat, American film director.
A tidy little B movie was fashioned from The Dark Page, but, ironically, Fuller didn’t make it: The adaptation, Scandal Sheet (1953), with Broderick Crawford as the city editor and John Derek as his metaphorical son, was directed by fellow B-movie magician Phil Karlson.
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Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007. Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.
April 14th, 2025 at 9:10 pm
Not a B-movie. I am not going to redefine B pictures, but this was an A. B is a term that goes to Budget and the manner in which the product is sold.
April 15th, 2025 at 10:39 am
I agree, but for what it’s worth, here’s how Wikipedia describes the term:
“A B movie, or B film, is a type of cheap, low-budget commercial motion picture. Originally, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, this term specifically referred to films meant to be shown as the lesser-known second half of a double feature, somewhat similar to B-sides in recorded music. However, the production of such films as “second features” in the United States largely declined by the end of the 1950s. This shift was due to the rise of commercial television, which prompted film studio B movie production departments to transition into television film production divisions. These divisions continued to create content similar to B movies, albeit in the form of low-budget films and series.
“Today, the term “B movie” is used in a broader sense. In post-Golden Age usage, B movies can encompass a wide spectrum of films, ranging from sensationalistic exploitation films to independent arthouse productions.”
For more — and it’s a lengthy entry — here’s the link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_movie
April 15th, 2025 at 11:23 am
Not clear enough, Steve. B films were sold at a fixed rate, usually but not always for a limited number of days. A pictures are sold or were in those days on a guarantee plus a piece of the gross admissions. These included second feature westerns, but not Gene Autry or Roy Rogers films. Republic tried and almost succeeded in turning Wild Bill Eliott into an A star, but it did not quite take.MGM did not make B films but they did produce second features, which we might call unimportant A films. RKO made some more expensive B’s like the Saint and Falcon series.
April 15th, 2025 at 11:39 am
The B film came in at a top budget of $350,000, but the original Thin Man came in for just under $200,000 in two weeks and went out as an A.
April 16th, 2025 at 4:23 am
Defining B Movies is a bit like arguing with Socrates; the deeper you go, the more confusion and contradiction you discover.
April 16th, 2025 at 8:22 am
For anyone wishing to see the movie, it’s currently available on YouTube:
Also, if anyone could say something about the book, it would be welcome. It may be difficult. I’ve never seen a copy.
April 16th, 2025 at 9:57 am
Dear Dan,
Wrong!
April 16th, 2025 at 5:24 pm
I’ve got The Big Red One, the Dark Page and dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street on my TBR stack—but ain’t gotten to ‘em yet. Hard Case Crime put out Brainquake. I loved Shock Corridor and the naked kiss and I think pickup on south street is one of the great noirs of all time.
April 17th, 2025 at 8:00 pm
More books I gotta read! I think I’ve managed only one of these, and that one’s Dead Pigeon, which is hardly the best of them. Man, I need more time in the day. And better eyes. The ones I have are getting old on me.
April 17th, 2025 at 12:30 pm
Barry is 100% correct on what a B movie is.
Wikipedia is wrong wrong wrong.
B movie had a rigorous clear meaning in Studio days.Why try to change it?
My favorite Fuller novel is Crown of India.
April 28th, 2025 at 6:59 pm
The book is an excellent page turner: the story is crisp and Fuller enhances the narrative tension by adding the protagonist Carl Chapman’s tortured thought processes for each turn in the action. Chapman, the newspaper editor, is a very complex character—one of those he is a stranger to himself types who cannot confront his true nature and does everything he can to avoid it. The other characterizations are good enough, except for Julie, the young reporter’s girlfriend, who is little more than a type (and the only character [the Donna Reed character] that the movie Scandal Sheet enriches). Fuller was clearly enamored of the journalist profession and the technical aspects of printing, but there is not so much information that it gets in the way of the story. I also enjoyed Fuller’s Park Row, fun and entertaining, also with a newspaper setting, also in 1952. Another strength of The Dark Page is the Bowery bar scenes, which are a growth experience for the young reporter (McCleary), and more than just “setting”. The story hook (like the movie) is that Chapman is constantly manipulating McCleary in his search for the killer, attempting to move him off track, but McCleary keeps getting closer and closer, with Chapman coming up with new ways to try and avert his detection. I won’t say much about the ending (spoiler), except that it is different (and stronger) than the movie, where Fuller resolves not only the plot, but more importantly the theme of Chapman attempting to come to terms with his own nature. Happiest of outcomes: good movie, good book. The last edition published is by Kingly-Reprieve in 2007 which contains an interesting introduction by Wim Wenders, in which he discusses some of the elements and techniques that contributed to Fuller’s storytelling craft.
April 28th, 2025 at 7:49 pm
Whew! A super review on its own. Makes me want to read Fuller all the more. Thanks, Bill!