STREET OF NO RETURN (1989) ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Samuel Fuller
Keith Carradine, Valentina Vargas, Bill Duke,
Andréa Ferréol, Bernard Fresson, Marc DeJonge
Samuel Fuller's first rule of filmmaking was characteristically blunt: "If the first page of the script doesn't give you a hard-on, throw the goddamn thing away." Fuller viewed America as a human zoo and believed violence and racism were an inextricable part of it, no matter how much he or anybody else wished it were otherwise. "Street of No Return" plays into all of that, with a story about a womanizing pop star (Keith Carradine) who gets his throat slashed for fooling around with a gangster's girlfriend and ends up an alcoholic bum. Its opening sequence is a race riot. Its first shot is a close-up of a black man getting hit in the face with a hammer. Carradine's a witness, watching from an alley off the street, but more interested in what might be left in the broken whiskey bottles that are lying around than the rival gangs of thugs manically stomping and stabbing each other. The cops clear the riot and the bum gets arrested, triggering a chain of events that could lead to redemption (not that Carradine has any hope of that) and maybe even a chance to settle an old score. The setting's an unnamed American city, but the movie was shot on the cheap in Portugal, which gives it an otherwordly edge. It comes at you like a set of brass knuckles, but there's artistry in every frame. Fuller does a cameo as the police commissioner. (You only hear his voice and see his silhouette.) In an eye-catching music video segment, the gangster's girlfriend, played by Valentina Vargas, appears as Lady Godiva. This barely got released anywhere and video copies can be hard to find, but it's vintage Sam Fuller, and that's as good as half-crazed, hard-boiled pulp moviemaking gets.
