What struck me the most of BARON was its extended consideration of how American free market capitalism can quite easily shear off into a criminal fraud. This film is more relevant than ever considering that the US is now in a financial meltdown preceded by decades of bank fraud, criminal lending practices, beyond irresponsible deregulation and all the wonders of Reaganism. Reavis would be a hero to the modern day neoconservatives. Fuller's implication is consistent: there's something fundamentally wrong with the way the system "works" to the advantage of the wealthy and powerful. The American Dream is still a Big Lie in THE NAKED KISS, a ruthless deconstruction of a "typical" US small town. Fuller exposes the way all systems are worked by criminal enterprise and the corruption goes right up to the top. 60s America as a madhouse in SHOCK CORRIDOR as a whorehouse is THE NAKED KISS were a one-two combination after which he left to make films in Europe.

Stylistically it's fascinating to watch how much he can cram in to each and every image. Working with little more than a few props he can visually carry the whole film in each shot, like the shadow of the lynching noose on the map of Arizona toward the end of BARON.