Samuel Michael "Sam" Fuller was an American film director, screenwriter, novelist, journalist, actor, and World War II veteran known for directing low-budget genre movies with controversial themes, often made outside the conventional studio system. Fuller wrote his first screenplay for Hats Off in 1936, and made his directorial debut with the Western I Shot Jesse James (1949). He would continue to direct several other Westerns and war thrillers throughout the 1950s.
Fuller in Normandy, France in 1987
I Shot Jesse James is a 1949 American Western film starring Reed Hadley as Jesse James and John Ireland as Bob Ford. Directed by Samuel Fuller in his debut behind the camera, it portrays the murder of Jesse James by Robert Ford and Robert Ford's life afterwards. The story is built around a fictional rivalry between Ford and his eventual killer Edward O’Kelley over a woman.
Film poster