By Jon Warner
“The reason that people understand the westerns I made with Randy Scott is that they were simple…..nothing in those Scott pictures would make the audience say, “What did he mean? What was he trying to say?……..I said it very simply, and that’s the way I make my pictures. One doesn’t have to sit there and say, “Well, I don’t know….ethically….and maybe he meant…” That’s a lot of crap: to be so artistic that you don’t make sense.”
Budd Boetticher – 1972 – Excerpt from The Director’s Event
“For it is indeed the most intelligent western I know while being at the same time the least intellectual, the most subtle and the least aestheticizing, the simplest and finest example of the form.”
Andre Bazin – Seven Men From Now – 1957 – Cahiers du Cinema
Through a series of 7 films that Budd Boetticher made in conjunction with his star Randolph Scott, the western saw some of its finest films get made. The best of the bunch, The Tall T, Ride Lonesome, Comanche Station, and especially Seven Men From Now were all written by Burt Kennedy. It was a tremendous stretch run for a director, writer, star combination, and it’s really only in recent years that Boetticher’s films have become more available and more lauded, finally landing Boetticher in the same discussion with Ford, Mann, and Leone (and I think Daves could be included as well). It turns out that Seven Men From Now, in particular, has been little seen for decades and only available in archive prints until about 2005. Because the film was produced under John Wayne’s Batjac film company (as opposed to Ranown Productions), it had different distribution rights than the other films in the series, and after Wayne’s death the film remained in hiding for the most part. It’s almost hard to believe that a film THIS good was so hard to see for so long. It is high time that this film gets seen because it’s one of the most perfect westerns ever made, and is worthy of consideration for top 10 status. Perhaps in years to come, this film will continue to receive more recognition. (more…)