Budd Boetticher

Budd Boetticher (born July 29, 1916 in Chicago , Illinois , † November 29, 2001 in Ramona , California ; actually: Oscar Boetticher jr. ) Was an American film director and screenwriter , who was mainly filmed by his minimalist with actor Randolph Scott Wrote Western film history.

Life

The son of a wealthy businessman shone as a young man at Ohio State University in particular with athletic achievements. In 1936 he went to Mexico to recover from a few injuries, met the bullfighter Carlos Arruza and had himself trained as a torero . In 1941, after a chance encounter with director Rouben Mamoulian , Boetticher was hired as a technical advisor for the bullfighting film King of the Toreros (with Tyrone Power ). He worked his way through numerous B-films as a director during the 1940s and got his first break-through break in 1951 with the film Bullfighter and the Lady , financed by John Wayne's Batjac production company , in which Robert Stack played an American torero in Mexico. The film was severely shortened without Boetticher's approval, but it received good reviews and is still one of the best films about bullfighting, especially in the restored version. In addition, Boetticher earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Story in 1952 .

After numerous other, less remarkable directing work, he shot, also for Batjac , in 1956 with Randolph Scott based on a script by Burt Kennedy, the turn of the seventh , which André Bazin would describe as "the most intelligent of all westerns". “Intelligent because not intellectual. Nothing is said here, but everything is clear. ”(Fritz Göttler, Süddeutsche Zeitung ) Until 1960, a whole series of clearly structured westerns, each produced in a little more than two weeks, was created, the Boetticher for those by Randolph Scott and his partner Harry Joe Brown directed production company Ranown turned, and which were later summarized by film historians as the "Ranown cycle". Boetticher also worked successfully for television.

At the height of his fame in 1960, he turned down several lucrative projects and decided to shoot a documentary about his friend Arruza in Mexico with his newlywed Debra Paget . The project, which he pursued for seven years, turned into a disaster. Boetticher's marriage broke up as a result of the strains, he himself became seriously ill, Arruza and several other people involved died in a car accident. Boetticher went bankrupt, ended up in prison and, after a mental breakdown, in a mental hospital. The film Arruza wasn't released until 1972, with little response.

In the meantime, Budd Boetticher had been largely forgotten. He made another film with Audie Murphy in 1969 , was able to sell some film ideas, published his autobiography When in Disgrace and played a small role in the 1988 film Tequila Sunrise , with Mel Gibson , Kurt Russell and Michelle Pfeiffer .

In the 1980s, Budd Boetticher was rediscovered by film critics. Several of his films came out in restored versions. In 1991 he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association . In 1995 a retrospective was dedicated to him at the Munich Film Festival , to which he traveled.

Budd Boetticher, who was hoping to make another Burt Kennedy screenplay, died in 2001 at his home in Ramona, California. He was married five times and had two daughters.

Filmography (selection)

• 1948: Behind Locked Door s
• 1951: Bullfighter and the Lady (alternatively: Torero for the restored version)
• 1952: Company 'Rote Teufel' ( Red Ball Express )
• 1952: Curse of the Lost (Horizons West)
• 1953: Seminola ( Seminole )
• 1953: The Man from the Alamo ( The Man From the Alamo )
• 1953: The City Under the Sea ( City Beneath the Sea )
• 1955: The Night is ours ( The Magnificent Matador )
• 1955: Bloody Hands ( The Killer Is Loose )
• 1956: It's the turn of the seventh ( Seven Men From Now )
• 1957: All About Head and Collar ( The Tall T )
• 1957: Ticket to the Hereafter ( Decision at Sundown )
• 1957: His Colt was faster ( Buchanan Rides Alone )
• 1959: knife on the throat ( westbound )
• 1959: On Your Own ( Ride Lonesome )
• 1960: One does not give up ( Comanche Station )
• 1969: time to die ( A Time For Dying )
• 1972: Arruza (documentary)
• 1985: My Kingdom For ... (documentary)

literature

• Robert Nott: The Films of Budd Boetticher . McFarland, 2018, ISBN 978-1476667072 .
• Robert Singer, Gary D. Rhodes: ReFocus: The Films of Budd Boetticher . Edinburgh University Press, 2017, ISBN 978-1474419031 .

Web links

• Budd Boetticher in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Budd Boetticher and the Westerns of Ranown (Engl.)