The critical acclaim of auteurists (the Cahiers du Cinéma, their American importers Andrew Sarris and Peter Bogdanovch, Pacific Film Archives programmers) for Budd Boetticher movies puzzled me before the TCM documentary "A Man Can Do That" and the screening of the UCLA restoration of "Seven Men from Now" (1956). The documentary explicitly borrowed and applied to Boetticher Oscar Wilde's self-characterization as having put his talent into his work, his genius into his life. It showed that Boetticher was a very interesting and engaging raconteur and highly regarded by other directors (including the unlikely duo of Clint Eastwood and Quentin Tarrantino, plus solo remarks by Taylor Hackford, Robert Towne, Paul Schrader, and Peter Bogdanovich).

The documentary focused particularly on Boetticher's bullfighting movies (he got his start in movies as a technical consultant for "Blood and Sand," wrote and directed his own story of learning bullfighting as a conspicuous norteño in "The Bullfighter and the Lady" which was hacked up by John Ford at the behest of John Wayne who had produced it, and "Arruza" which supposedly ended his career, though he had only made one movie in the preceding eleven years). Among the westerns for which Boetticher has been extravagantly lauded, the documentary examined most closely "Seven Men from Now."

Perhaps because "A Man Can Do That" shaped how I watched "Seven Men from Now," I found it better than the only other Boetticher western I've seen, Comanche Station (also filmed around Lone Pine, California and the last of six westerns directed by Boetticher and starring Randolph Scott), a movie that has a higher IMDB user than "Seven Men from Now."

To me, Randolph Scott seems a very stiff actor, both literally and metaphorically. He definitely stood tall, had excellent posture, and spoke laconically. Midway through the movie, he is wounded, which provides a reason for him to move stiffly, but his characters are also very repressed and speak with an old-fashioned politesse that seems exaggerated. Ben Stride, the character he plays here, has a crushing burden of guilt that his (stiff) pride was responsible for his wife's death. He had been sheriff for twelve years, but did not court popularity (Lee Marvin's character explains that he was not the baby-kissing type) and was voted out of office. His self-regard kept him from taking the job of deputy sheriff, his wife went to work for Wells Fargo, and was shot in a robbery.

The seven men of the title are the bank robbers whom Stride is hunting down. He dispatches the first two in the movie's first scene, before the audience knows very much of the backstory. In "A Man Can Do That" Clint Eastwood pointed out that in the movie the audience never sees Scott draw. There is a scene showing that Lee Marvin was a quick-draw and Eastwood speculates that Scott was probably not one, but also explains how Boetticher makes him seem superhumanly lightning-fast.

Riding on to find the other five, Stride finds a covered wagon stuck in a mudhole. He hooks up the two slain men's horses to pull it out, and agrees to ride south with the Greers (Walter Reed and Gail Russell). En route they meet a cavalry patrol (led by Stuart Whitman) and Stride expresses his contempt for the hunting down of Apaches starved by Indian agent graft. There are two encounters with (Chiricauhua) Apaches, one a standard western shoot-out with a twist at the end, the other building on the views Stride presents to the lieutenant.

Along the way, the Greers and their escort have been joined by a very sardonic Lee Marvin (as Bill Masters) and a not-very-bright sidekick, Clete (Don Barry). Marvin is smitten by Mrs. Greer (Russell) and contemptuous of her husband whom he regards as "short-spined." He picks up on the attraction between Stride and Mrs. Greer and also knows Stride well enough (having been jailed by him twice) to know that propriety will override desire, that is, that Stride will not make a move on Mrs. Greer. (That is how both invariably address and refer to her.)

The scene of Masters, Stride, and the Greers inside the covered wagon on a stormy night has the menace of Harold Pinter ("The Homecoming" springs to mind for the indirect emasculation of a husband) with a seething Randolph Scott and Lee Marvin at his leering trouble-making best.

Besides being a horn-dog and a quick-draw, Masters is a sort of human vulture. He knows that Stride is on a vendetta mission to kill the bank robbers. Masters wants them out of the way to make his own move on the box of stolen gold, though he knows that when they have all been slain, if Stride is still alive Stride will not let Masters make off with the gold. The role of Masters is quite complex for a B-western and Marvin is spectacularly good in the part. Stride is pretty ruthless, but Masters more so. Masters respects worthy opponents and prefers working with Stride to fighting him, and the plot is less formulaic than it seems, for much of the movie, to be.

I also learned from "A Man Can Do That" that John Greer's seeming cowardice was a recurrent theme in Boetticher's movies... and that as a rich kid/sissy as a child who became a boxer and a bull-fighter, the transformation (or revelation as in "Comanche Station") of men whose masculinity or sense of honor has been denigrated has autobiographical roots.

I don't want to spoil the surprises that Burt Kennedy's story and screenplay provided, but do want to express appreciation of them. Reed and Russell play their parts perfectly (Scott's was tailored to his stiff courtliness and implacability).

The movie has a lot of long shots showing off the spectacular scenery of Lone Pine, California, a favorite locale for filming westerns (that does not look like the Chiricauhuas!). Boetticher had lost the great cinematographer Lucien Ballard by 1956, but Boetticher knew what he wanted and William H. Clothier shot it. (Clothier went on to photograph many westerns, including "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" for John Ford with Marvin as Liberty Valance.) There is little (if any) camera movement, but a lot of intercutting (foreshadowing "The Wild Bunch" as it also does in the aging man of honor).

Although the movie's running time is only 1:18, the Greer's trip with even more undercurrents than are immediately visible seems leisurely and a bit travelogish. The final three confrontations involve some impressive long shots.

The only aspect I dislike is that the opening credits has one of those relentless songs that marred so many 1950s westerns (I think "High Noon" started this bad habit). It is only heard during the opening credits, fortunately.

And after the testimony in "A Man Can Do That" and a restored print of "Seven Men from Now," I have come to believe that the Boetticher admirers are on to something, though I would rank him behind Sam Peckinah, Anthony Mann, Sergio Leone, and (possibly) John Sturges, as well as John Ford and Howard Hawks (in "Man" the claim is made that Boetticher stands third in the canon of makers of westerns). Now I want to see Scott with Richard Boone as an antagonist and another married couple in "The Tall T" (1957) and hope that someone is restoring it.

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The restored print is available on DVD from Paramount, which includes an earlier documentary, "Budd Boetticher: An American Original." Like "the Bullfighter and the Lady," "Seven Men from Now" was produced by John Wayne, who might have starred in it, but was making "The Searchers" under the direction of John Ford. "Seven Men" has been unavailable since Wayne's death in 1979 and had become something of a legend of a lost masterpiece—which for a 78-minute B-western it is. Eastwood says that both he and Sergio Leone learned from Boetticher westerns, and "Man" illustrates some parallels.

And I think the documentary makes exaggerated claims for Boetticher discovering and launching actors' careers. Lee Marvin, for instance, had made memorable appearances (albeit in smaller parts) in The Big Heat, The Wild One, and Bad Day at Black Rock before playing Manning and had four screen credits before appearing in "Seminole."


©2005, 2007 Stephen O. Murray

In between when I first wrote it and this reposting, I saw the 1957 Scott/Boetticher "Decision at Sundown" (Sundown it the name of a town that watched its sheriff be horse-whipped to death and is dominated by a smirking fancy man, Tate Kimbrough (John Carroll).

"Decision at Sundown" has very little action and a very stiff Scott (stiff in resolve and character, but also physically stiff). Noah Beery, Jr. as his Beta Male is the best aspect of the movie, which involves Scott tracking down the last of the men with whom his wife Mary had affairs while he was off in the Confederate Army. That his wife slept around rather than that she was ravaged by Kimbrough, Scott accepts very reluctantly, while stirring things up in Sundown. That he says he is going to kill Carroll and holes up in the stable makes no sense at all to me, but halts Carroll's wedding. The townspeople reasserting themselves against the bully may have intended resonances with the movie town (Hollywood) was starting to cast off its subservience to the censors and the blacklist.

The impure wife was unusual content for a 1950s western, but I'd only give the movie 3.5 stars, so am still skeptical of the cult of Boetticher/Scott movies and think that "Seven Men from Now" is significantly better than the others.



Recommended:
Yes