Samuel Fuller (1912-1997) carried in him the very spirit of American independent filmmaking. A longtime New Yorker and lifelong workhorse he began as a newspaper copyboy at age 12, was a crime reporter by 17, wrote his first of a dozen pulp novels at 22 – with titles like Test Tube Baby and Burn Baby Burn – his first of many screenplays at 24, fought in the United States Infantry in the Second World War, and began his directorial career – which would total 26 films across four decades – in 1949 with the western I Shot Jesse James. A maverick in the confines of b-production his work sp...