Boetticher, Budd [Oscar]  (1916)

 Direc?tor. Boetticher is the perfect example of the auteur: his Westerns gain immeasurably when viewed as a totality. This is especially true of the series with Randolph Scott, beginning with Seven Men from Now, most of which were produced by Harry Joe Brown and scripted by Burt Kennedy. Working in the tradition of the B-Western, with modest resources, Boetticher achieved works of great beauty, formally precise in structure and visually elegant, notably in their use of the distinctive landscape of the California Sierras. As the hero of these 'floating poker games' (as Andrew Sarris called them), Scott tempers their innately pessimistic view of the world with quiet, stoical humour, as he pits his wits against such charming villains as Richard Boone in The Tall T and Claude Akins in Comanche Station. Boetticher had trained as a bullfighter and made several films about matadors. His Westerns are concerned exclusively with individual courage and self-reliance, showing none of Ford's interest in the values of the com?munity or sense of historical tradition. Jim Kitses in his book Horizons West, the best description of Boetticher's work, calls his films 'small, glittering morality plays'. Yet characteristically, even overt statements of this morality emerge in stylishly laconic form: 'There are some things a man can't ride around.