Budd Boetticher

Budd Boetticher ( born July 29, 1916 in Chicago, † 29 November 2001 in Ramona, California; actually: Oscar Boetticher Jr. ) was an American film director who wrote primarily for his twisted with actor Randolph Scott minimalist Western film history.

Biography

The son of a wealthy businessman shone as a young man at Ohio State University in particular with athletic performance. In 1936 he went to Mexico to recuperate from some injuries, learned the bullfighter Carlos Arruza know and had himself trained as a matador. 1941 Boetticher was hired after a chance encounter by director Rouben Mamoulian as a technical consultant for the bull fight film King of the Toreros ( with Tyrone Power). He worked as a director during the 1940s by numerous B- movies and got his first chance to break through in 1951 with the US-funded John Wayne's production company Batjac film The Bullfighter and the Lady, in which Robert Stack played an American Bullfighter in Mexico. The film was heavily cut without Boetticher's approval, but received good reviews and is - especially in the restored version - until today as one of the best films about bullfighting. In addition Boetticher 1952 earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Story.

After numerous other less notable directorial work he turned, also for Batjac, 1956 with Randolph Scott from a screenplay by Burt Kennedy the film The Seventh is off the André Bazin should be described as " the smartest of all Western ". " Intelligent, because not intellectually. Nothing is said here, but everything is clear. " (Fritz Göttler, Süddeutsche Zeitung) Until 1960, I took a whole series of such clearly structured, produced in each little more than two weeks westerns Boetticher for Randolph Scott and his partner Harry Joe Brown directed production company Ranown turned, and were then collected by film historians as " Ranown cycle ". These Boetticher was also successful for television.

At the height of his fame in 1960, he turned down several lucrative projects and decided, with his newly wedded wife, Debra Paget, in Mexico to make a documentary about his friend Arruza. The project, which he followed for seven years, came to disaster. Boetticher's marriage broke up in the hardships that he himself was seriously ill, Arruza and several other party died in a car accident. Boetticher went bankrupt, landed in jail and after a mental breakdown in a mental hospital. The film was released with little resonance until 1972.

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

In the 1980s, Budd Boetticher was rediscovered by the film critics. Several of his films came out in restored versions. In 1991, the price of the life's work he was awarded the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. 1995, he was dedicated to the Munich Film Festival, a retrospective, to which he traveled all.

Budd Boetticher, who until recently was still hoping to be able to film yet another screenplay by Burt Kennedy, died in 2001 at his home in Ramona, California. He was married five times and had two daughters.

Filmography (selection)

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