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Budd Boetticher

The career of Budd Boetticher is one of the most interesting ever confined to B pictures. A collegiate athlete at Ohio State University, he traveled to Mexico in the mid-1930s, becoming so enamored with bullfighting that he eventually wielded the cape as a professional matador. Boetticher's experience in the bull ring led to his entrance in the film industry as a technical advisor on Rouben Mamoulian's "Blood and Sand" (1941), and he spent the next couple years as an assistant director, apprenticing to the likes of Charles Vidor and George Stevens. His first directing credit (as Oscar Boetticher) came at the helm of "One Mysterious Night" (1944), and he continued with low-budget second features throughout the decade (with a brief interruption for military service). Boetticher (now taking his credit as Budd) returned to his former calling with "The Bullfighter and the Lady" (1951), co-writing the autobiographical tale of a cocky American who journeys to Mexico and decides to tackle the profession, enlisting the aid of the country's leading matador. The picture launched Robert Stack to stardom and won Boetticher an Oscar nomination for his original motion picture story, even though John Ford cut 42 minutes of footage before its release. (A version that restored 37 of those minutes is even better than the shorter print.)