Underworld USA

Cuddles and Tolly

Shock, horror, probe. Sam Fuller’s Underworld USA is further proof that the former crime journalist and pulp novelist’s knack for attention-grabbing material survived the transition from the page to the screen. Fuller was a newspaper copyboy aged 12, a crime reporter aged 17, a novelist aged 23 and a screenwriter aged 26. A man in a hurry with a newspaperman’s broad-brush approach, a desire to tell a story boldly and clearly… and then move on, in the early 1960s he became particularly associated with low budget issue-driven features that were all about the lurid sell – Shock Corridor (mental illness), The Crimson Kimono (interracial relationships) and The Naked Kiss (prostitution). Underworld USA fits that … Read more