Little-known director had heck of a ride

Budd Boetticher may be the greatest director you’ve never heard of. But the French adore him. And filmmakers such as Clint Eastwood, Taylor Hackford and Quentin Tarantino are among his most ardent admirers.

From 1956 through 1960, Boetticher made seven low-budget westerns with veteran sagebrush star Randolph Scott. These oaters were mean, lean, grittily acted and even erotic. His evocative use of landscapes and quick-draw editing style influenced the Italian spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone as well as those of Sam Peckinpah and Eastwood.

Scott’s lantern-jaw protagonists were complex, edgy and far from the typical “good guy” of vintage westerns. John Wayne would have had a hard time fitting in Boetticher’s world. It was Wayne, though, who championed Boetticher and produced his greatest western, 1956’s “Seven Men From Now.”

The restored “Seven Men From Now,” the first collaboration between Boetticher and Scott, premieres tonight on Turner Classic Movies -- Paramount also released the film Tuesday on DVD. After the film is a documentary, “Budd Boetticher: A Man Can Do That.”

Though Eastwood had met Boetticher only a few times before his death in 2001, he eagerly became involved with the documentary as executive producer and on-screen talent.

“It’s fun to reach down and try to bring an afterlife to some of these people who didn’t get much credit when they were around,” Eastwood says.

Before he began making his Scott westerns, Boetticher spent time as a contract director at Universal. Eastwood was a young actor under contract at the studio as well in the early ‘50s.

“He was sort of notorious,” Eastwood says, laughing. “I used to hear people talk about Boetticher. I gather he was tough to get along with and probably a little surly with the front office.”

Boetticher wrote the original story for Eastwood’s 1970 western, “Two Mules for Sister Sarah,” directed by Don Siegel. “I never read his material,” Eastwood says. “I think when he wrote the idea, he thought it would be about a Mexican prostitute posing as a nun. Later on, when Universal wanted Elizabeth Taylor for the role, they said, she’s dark, maybe they could make a stretch.

“When that deal fell through, they had Shirley MacLaine, who had done ‘Sweet Charity,’ so they [cast her]. I said, ‘She has an Irish-looking face for a Mexican lady!’ ”

Boetticher had an even greater effect on Hackford’s life. “Budd had an amazing influence and he had such style and that style came out of ingenuity, not dollars. He never had very much money.”

Several scenes from a KCET documentary Hackford made with Boetticher more than 30 years ago are featured in the new documentary.

Narrated by Ed Harris, “A Man Can Do That” includes numerous excerpts from an eight-hour interview Boetticher gave shortly before his death, plus healthy servings of clips from his films and interviews with Eastwood, Hackford, Tarantino and Paul Schrader.

Born Oscar Boetticher Jr. to a wealthy family in 1916, he excelled in sports, especially boxing and football, before heading to Mexico in the 1930s to become a matador. It was his experience in the ring that led to him being hired in 1941 as the technical advisor on Rouben Mamoulian’s 1941 version of the bullfighting tale “Blood and Sand.” Boetticher ended up staying in Hollywood, first working as a messenger and eventually working up to director, where he helmed numerous low-budget Boston Blackie mystery thrillers.

He made his first real mark in Hollywood in 1951 with his bullfighting epic, “The Bullfighter and the Lady,” for which he received his only Oscar nomination for the story.

After his stint at Universal, Boetticher teamed with Scott in 1956 with “Seven Men From Now,” penned by Burt Kennedy.

“The Tall T,” “Decision at Sundown,” “Westbound,” “Buchanan Rides Alone,” “Ride Lonesome” and “Comanche Station” round out the “The Ranown Cycle,” named after Scott and producer Harry Jo Brown’s production company.

Hackford first became acquainted with Boetticher’s westerns in the early 1970s when he was working at KCET.

“I had some friends who were going to USC film school, and when there were screenings I’d hang out with them. They screened the entire seven films. It was a revelation, and on the basis of having seen the films I met Budd and approached KCET about doing the special. It was great to have captured him at the time. He was still very vibrant and alive.”

And, he adds, “difficult. No one would ever accuse Budd of being a milquetoast. He had a very two-fisted vision, and it’s always in his films. There was an artist there and somebody who knew how to tell a film and create characters.”

The filmmaker also had skill for picking young talent -- Lee Marvin, James Coburn, Pernell Roberts and Richard Boone are among the actors who appear in his films.

“All of these people went on to become big television stars in lead series in the ‘50s and ‘60s,” Hackford says.

Much like directors of low-budget films noir in the late 1940s, Boetticher and his team worked outside the Hollywood mainstream. “That’s one of the reasons he was able to get away with some of the dialogue and sexiness in his movies,” Hackford says. “They were B movies seen in the hinterlands, and they were always away from the Hollywood censors because they were not big releases of the major studios.”

After finishing “The Ranown Cycle,” Boetticher helmed the gangster film “The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond” in 1960 and then went to Mexico to make a documentary on his close friend matador Carlos Arruza.

The seven-year adventure was a personal and professional debacle. His wife, Debra Paget, divorced him. He ran out of money, fell seriously ill, was jailed and even spent a week in an asylum. Arruza died in a car crash that also killed most of the film crew.

By the time he returned to Hollywood, he was a long-forgotten figure. He made a film with Audie Murphy called “A Time for Dying.” The two had hoped to make more films together, a la Scott, but Murphy died in a plane crash in 1971.

The next year, he released “Arruza” and over the years made cameos in films, including “Tequila Sunrise.”

“I don’t think he fit in,” Eastwood concludes of Boetticher. “A lot of these [B directors] get used to being in that size of film and [producers] don’t see you doing anything larger. I was fortunate enough to be able to help Don Siegel to some bigger pictures, but [Boetticher] never got to do any big ones.”

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Where: TCM

When: 8 tonight

Ratings: TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children)

Ed Harris...Narrator

Executive producer: Clint Eastwood. Director and producer: Bruce Ricker. Writer and producer: Dave Kehr.