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Boetticher fu l'erede di Anthony Mann.
I suoi sette western degli anni '50,
interpretati da Randolph Scott e sceneggiati da Burt Kennedy, sono drammi allegorici di eroismo etico in
cui l'individuo si costruisce una morale personale all'interno di un paesaggio umano senza valori umani. I
protagonisti sono eroi duri e solitari, vittime di torti abnormi, di tradimenti abissali, di una violenza
irrazionale. Il loro unico scopo e' ristabilire la giustizia. Il dualismo manicheo che li antepone al loro
carnefice e' il loro stesso senso d'essere. La loro esistenza e' un lungo duello con il male. Il rituale classico
del western (l'eroe che insegue e uccide il bandito) si ripete sempre uguale, ma questa volta si tratta di un
fatto personale: l'eroe e' la vittima, non sta difendendo la comunita' bensi' la propria dignita'; invece di
ergersi a simbolo della comunita', ne esce per affrontare solitario il suo destino. L'eroe ha bisogno di avere
il deserto intorno, di essere lasciato solo con il suo fardello, con il suo compito. Scott e' freddo e riservato,
integro, stoico ed essenziale, e cosi' la regia di Boetticher, alle prese con budget ristretti. Non succede
nulla di eccezionale durante il film: l'azione e' gia' successa prima. Spesso scott, l'eroe positivo, appare
meno vivo del villain, perche' la sua vita e' ormai finita; mentre il villain sta vivendo la sua fuga, e sembra
piu' umano.
Seven Men From Now (1956) is a psychological western that has several
narrative layers. The superficial story is a classic: a lonely hero obsessed
with avenging a crime. But there is also an unspoken love story, between this
man and the woman of another man. And there is a third story, the most
intriguing, the story of this hero confronting his alter-ego, each representing
two noble ways to live the myth of the Far West.
A lonely man in a rainy night walks into the tent set up by two men who are
drinking coffee. He says that Indians ate his horse.
They briefly discuss a murder committed in his home town
and then they shoot each other. The following morning (a sunny morning)
the lonely man is riding away alone, clearly having shot dead the other two.
He meets John and Annie, a pioneer couple whose wagon is stuck in the mud.
The lonely man proves to be a good-mannered and generous man: he helps them and, without saying a word about his mission other
than his name (Ben), agrees to ride along with them, in case more
trouble is ahead. He is struck by the lady, particularly when she jumps into
a river, but she is a bit disturbed by his noble but cold attitude.
They meet the cavalry. The lieutenant tells them to go back because there
are Indians on the war path. Ben disputes the version of the army (he thinks
that the Indians are simply angry) but coldly tells the pioneers that they
should obey and go back. However, the husband, John,
is stubborn and would continue alone. Ben keeps following them, clearly humane
despite his cold and arrogant attitude. When they reach a trade outpost, they
meet an old man who is leaving, and who tells them that everybody has already
left, and then two men, armed to their teeth. Ben happens to know one of them,
Masters (Lee Marvin), who happens to know of the robbery and murder in Ben's
hometown. Masters, who was arrested twice by Ben, says upfront that he had nothing to do with it, and Ben
tells him that he suspected him.
The pioneer couple learns from him that Ben was a sheriff and that he is on
a mission. The mission has to do with something that happened in his hometown.
Seven men committed an armed robbery and one person was killed: his wife.
That explains his silent attitude.
When the wife, Annie, tries to talk to Ben, he adds that he feels guilty: having
lost his job as sheriff, he refuses to accept the job of deputy, and his wife
had to accept a job at the bank. She was killed because of his pride.
Masters confronts Ben alone. Ben has already shot dead two of the seven and
is clearly obsessed with avenging the death of his wife by killing all of them.
Masters is following him because he wants the money. Ben needs Masters because
Masters knows the criminals, led by a gunfighter named Payte.
The criminals know Ben (everybody knows a sheriff) but Ben does not know them.
They all think that the criminals are in the same town to which the
pioneer couple is heading.
Ben knows that Masters is a villain, but seems to believe in his innocence
right away. Masters behaves but he tells his buddy that he has set his eyes
on Annie. As they are crossing a desert, they see a white man chased by
Indians. Masters and his buddy rush to shoot the Indians, killing some of them,
while Ben rescues the man. The moment Ben turns his back to him, he pulls out
his gun to shoot him in the back.
Masters sees it and shoots, saving Ben's life. Ben says
he never saw the man before, but clearly he must have been one of the seven.
Masters is Ben's perfect alter-ego: the same arrogant attitude and cold
determination, just applied to the other side of morality (he wants stolen
gold, he wants another man's wife). Ben offends them with his indifference,
Masters offends them with his cynicism. They are both fascinated by Annie,
although in two opposite ways: one is erotic and and the other one is
the opposite of erotic (but no less persuasive as a potential lover for a
woman who clearly does not admire his husband too much). During a rainy night
Masters tells a story that sounds like a parable, of a gentleman (similar
to Ben) who ran away with another man's girl (similar to Annie) and
humiliated the other man (similar to John). When they are alone, Ben, who
understood perfectly well the irony, hits Masters and tells him to stop
following him.
Masters and his buddy ride ahead and get to the town where the four surviving
members of the gang are hiding. Masters tells Payte that they killed Ben's
wife, and that Ben is after them. Payte offers Masters a share of the gold
that they stole. Masters asks to see the gold. Payte tells him that a man
named John is carrying it for them. (John does not know that he is helping
the very criminals who killed Ben's wife, and Ben doesn't know that he is
helping deliver the gold for which his wife was killed).
Ben parts from the pioneer couple. Annie shows her affection and her
apprehension for him, but he is not going to stop. Ben ride into a canyon alone,
and is attacked by two of the gangsters. He kills them both but is wounded
and left without a horse. John and Annie find him unconscious and save him.
Annie would like for John to go and look for a doctor, but John refuses.
John wants to reach the town before sunset and wants to take the unconscious
Ben with them. Annie is appalled: they both know that the surviving criminals
are waiting for Ben in that town, ready to kill him. John is forced to reveal
the secret: he tells her that he is carrying the gold and has to deliver it
before sunset. But Ben has already recovered and has overheard him.
Ben tells him to drop the gold and get out. Ben's plan is to wait in the
canyon for the criminals to come and look for the gold.
John takes off with his wagon
and an even less impressed wife, but then decides to head for the town.
The wagon rides into town. Payte and his only surviving pal come out of
the saloon to welcome it. John tells him that Ben took the gold.
Masters and his pal watch and listen. John, feeling that he owes Ben,
challenges Payte and marches towards the sheriff office (presumably to
call the sheriff, although obviously that is a lawless town),
but Payte shoots him in the back and takes off.
Masters rides after him.
Ben kills Payte's partner. Masters and his partner kill Payte. Then Masters
coldly kills his own partner and lights a match on his beard. Then he starts
walking towards the box of gold. Ben comes out limping. Now Ben's mission
is over: all the seven men are dead. Now it is a different mission: Ben,
the defender of the law, against Masters, who does not care about the law
but, in his own mysterious way, seems to care for decent human beings (he
could have waited for Payte and Ben to kill each other). Masters tells Ben
that he would hate to kill him now that Annie is a widow.
They stare at each other, ready to shoot. Ben shoots. Masters doesn't even try.
In his own way, Masters too was a defender of the order, and wanted Ben to
rescue the gold and to marry the widow.
Days later, Ben says goodbye to Annie. He is going back to his hometown to
take the deputy job that he had refused. Annie is taking the coach to
California, where her husband always dreamed of settling. They part as coldly
as they met. But Ben invites her to come and visit him. Ben leaves. Annie
tells the coachman that she is not leaving anymore.
Decision at Sundown (1957) is set in a town. An implausible plot
detracts from the mission-impossible theme.
Bart (Scott) who is riding in a stagecoach pulls out the gun to stop the coach
and get off. His friend Sam is waiting for him with a horse. They ride into
town. They are there for a man, Tate, who rules the town and is about to
get married to the prettiest girl in town, Lucy. Tate is in fact getting
ready at the hotel, bidding goodbye to the girl who has been his girl until
then, Ruby. Bart shaves and dresses up for the occasion. The pair soon find
out that only the doctor is willing to speak out against Tate. The rest are
either afraid or on his side, including the sheriff.
At the wedding Bart warns the bride that she will be a widow by sundown:
he came to kill Tate. Then he leaves the church and of course Tate's man
chase him (so it is not clear why he went to provoke them). He and Sam
barricade themselves in the stables. The wedding is upset and leaves the church.
He is surrounded by men shooting at him (so it is not clear how he was planning
to kill Tate). Even his friend Sam is surprised to hear Bart's real motive:
avenge the suicide of his wife, which he clearly blames on Tate.
Lucy demands an explanation from Tate, who admits that he had an affair
with Bart's wife. Lucy confronts Tate and insults the memory of his wife.
Sam himself tries to tell Bart that his wife was no saint.
Bart hits him before Sam can finish his story. Bart kicks him out of the
stables. Sam eats at the restaurant and then is about to leave when he is
shot in the back. The coward citizens who have never found the guts to
oppose Tate are shaken. The doctor stirs up the crowd. Lucy's father admits
that he has lost his self-respect. The men walk outside and force the
sheriff to face Bart alone. Bart wins the duel and kills the sheriff.
Lucy thanks Bart for saving her from a terrible wedding and for saving the
town, and tries to talk sense into him: Tate has already lost everything he
had, because he lost control of the town. But Bart cannot be stopped.
Tate has to face him in duel. Tate's old girlfriend Ruby, the only way who
really loves him, finds the only way to stop Bart: she shoots Tate in the
arm, so he cannot carry out the duel. Then she shouts the truth at Bart:
his wife always cheated on him, and not because Tate forced her.
The doctor walks out and tells Bart that Sam had told him the same.
Bart's mission has saved the town from Tate's dictatorship, but it was all
based on a colossal lie.
Bart leaves more desperate than he came.
Tall T (1958)
Buchaman Rides Alone (1958)
Ride Lonesome (1959) is the story of a bounty hunter who has to defend
his prisoners from a bunch of younger frontiersmen.
Westbound (1959)
Comanche Station (1960), the last and best of of Budd Boetticher's
western cycle of the revenge-seeking hero.
The film has almost no action. It is mainly a series of horseback and campfire
conversations.
A lonely rider, Cody, advances in a rocky landscape.
He is soon surrounded by Indians. He spreads out his goods and offers (with
gestures) to trade them for something. He is taken to the camp and the chief
in person accepts his offer: a white woman for all his goods and his gun.
He is cold and not matter of factual. She wonders if her husband hired him.
But this is not the case: his motives remain mysterious.
The woman is afraid of returning to her old life, of how her husband would
welcome her. Her liberator tells her that it would not matter to him what
the Indians have done to her.
He brings the woman to "Comanche Station", where Cody helps a
a wild bunch repel the Indians who are chasing them. It turns that the leader,
Ben, of the gang knows him well: when they were both in the army, Cody was the
one who court martialed the man for massacring harmless Indian women and
children. Both Cody and the woman learn from them that
the woman's husband has offered a spectacular reward for her return.
Of course, they all think that this was the motive behind Cody's actions.
The woman is resentful that he did what he did only for money, and would
even prefer to proceed alone to her husband's place.
On the other hand, the outlaw whispers to the woman that her husband did not
come looking for her in person, thus implying her husband may be rich but
not very courageous. Ben is toying with the idea of "stealing" the woman from
Cody and then cash the reward. He tells his partners a detail he omitted to
the woman: the husband is willing to pay the reward even if the woman is
returned dead. They could kill both Cody and the woman, and still get the
money.
Cody doesn't trust Ben either. He knows the Indians must have had a reason
for chasing Ben, and suspects Ben may have been in the scalping business
(killing Indiands for money, and collecting scalps to prove how many he
killed). After a dying man reaches the station with the news of more Indian
attacks, they all decide to move together towards the town.
They ride and talk. Then they camp again. The woman tries to be kinder to
the man who, after all, saved her life, but he does not like to explain
his reasons. When one of Ben's men is found dead, Cody simply orders to move
on, indifferent to the dead one, an act that only increases the woman's
conviction that he must be a heartless bounty killer.
Now there are only four of them: the woman, Cody, Ben and Ben's helper Doby.
Ben told her that Cody rescued from white women from the Indians than anyone
else.
Ben's helper, Doby, tells the woman what the real reason is for Cody's behavior:
Cody's wife was kidnapped by Indians ten years earlier and he
has been looking for her ever since.
He buys back white captives from the Commanches hoping to recover his wife,
despite the fact that everybody else thinks she is dead.
Then this boy (fundamentally a good boy) warns her to stay as close to Cody
as possible during the trip. Later he also tries to dissuade Ben from the
plan to kill Cody and the woman.
They fight more Indians and then camp again. The woman has a chance to tell
Cody how much she respects him now, and how frightened she is to go back to
her husband. For the first time he pays her a compliment.
During the night, Cody takes action against Ben: he forces him and his
helper, Doby, to part company. Ben pretends to accept defeat, but is only
planning an ambush. The boy, Doby, protests and tries to go back and tell Cody,
but Ben kills him. The sound of the shot saves Cody and the woman. But
Ben is still hiding between the rocks, ready to shoot again, and they have
to go through the narrow canyon. Cody succeeds in killing Ben, and they
finally complete the trip to her ranch. She hugs her child, and her husband
comes out to welcome her back: he is blind. That's the reason that he
didn't look for her in person.
Cody leaves them, without claiming the reward, and rides away alone in the
rocky landscape.
Rise And Fall of Jack Diamond (1960)
Con Boetticher nacque il western naturalista.
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