ReFocus: The Films of Budd Boetticher: (ReFocus: The American Directors Series)

About the Book

One of the most important yet overlooked of Hollywood auteurs, Budd Boetticher was responsible for a number of classic films, including his famous 'Ranown' series of westerns starring Randolph Scott. With influential figures like Martin Scorsese and Clint Eastwood acknowledging Boetticher's influence, and with growing academic interest in his work, Gary D. Rhodes and Robert Singer present a vital collection of essays on the director's long career, from a range of international scholars. Looking at celebrated films like Buchanan Rides Alone (1958) and Comanche Station (1960), as well as at lesser-known works like Escape in the Fog (1945) and Behind Locked Doors (1948), this book also addresses Boetticher's influential television work on the James Garner series Maverick, and Boetticher's continuing aesthetic influence on contemporary TV classics like Breaking Bad.

Table of Contents:
DedicationIntroductionSection 1 introductionChapter 1: "I never did think he was crazy": Mystery and Criminality in Boetticher’s Psychological Noirs, by Marlisa SantosChapter 2: On ethics and style in Bullfighter and the Lady (1951), by Fredrik GustafssonChapter 3: Domestic Tension and Male Hysteria: The Killer is Loose (1956), by Tony WilliamsChapter 4: The Killer is Loose (1956) and the Televisual Dissolution of Film Noir, by Hugh S. ManonChapter 5: Adventures on the Small Screen: Boetticher, Warner Bros., and Maverick, by David J. HoganChapter 6: The Signifying Heel: Boetticher’s The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (1960), by Robert SingerSection 2 introductionChapter 7: The Ranown Cycle: Budd Boetticher’s "New Look" Western Programmers in 1950s Hollywood, by Zoe Wallin and Karina AveyardChapter 8: Framings, Motifs and Floating Poker Games in Seven Men from Now (1956), by Steve NealeChapter 9: The Ranown Style: Mapping Textual Echoes, by Lucy Fife DonaldsonChapter 10: You Were Married, But You Never Had a Wife: The Use of Space in the Westerns of Budd Boetticher, by Christopher MinzChapter 11: Ideology and Boetticher’s Westerns from the late 1950s, by John WhiteChapter 12: Outlaws Without a Cause: Generational Conflict in Budd Boetticher’s Ranown Cycle, by Brooks E. HefnerChapter 13: The Box in the Desert: Budd Boetticher, Breaking Bad, and the 21st Century Western, by Robert GuffeyAuthor Biographies

About the Author :
Gary D. Rhodes is Professor of Media, Oklahoma Baptist University. He is the author of Emerald Illusions: The Irish in Early American Cinema (2012), The Perils of Moviegoing in America (2012), and The Birth of the American Horror Film (2018). He is a founding editor of Horror Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Rhodes is also the writer-director of the documentary films Lugosi: Hollywood's Dracula (1997) and Banned in Oklahoma (2004). Robert Singer, Professor of Liberal Studies, CUNY Graduate Center [ret]. He received a Ph.D. from New York University in Comparative Literature. His areas of expertise include literary and film interrelations, interdisciplinary research in film history and aesthetics, and comparative studies. He is the ReFocus: American and International Film series co-editor for Edinburgh University Press. He has written and directed several independent short films and co-produced the animated film, Ulalume (2022). Among his more recent publications are Consuming Images: Film Art and the Television Commercial (EUP, 2020), co-authored with Gary Rhodes, and “A View from the Boardwalk: The W.P.A. New York City Guide and Coney Island Hypertext,” in Rewriting America: New Essays on the Federal Writers’ Project, ed. Sara Rutkowski, (2022).

Review :
The diversity of approach and the individuality of the writing come together for a common focus with such clarity and illumination, resulting in Refocus: The Films of Budd Boetticher being an essential read. It is the publication that fans of Budd Boetticher have longed for.' Rigorous, tightly focused, lucid and forceful – Budd Boetticher’s films lend their own distinctive attributes to this outstanding and long overdue collection of critical essays on the great Hollywood director. While his celebrated Westerns rightly take centre stage, an impressive posse of scholars does full justice to the entirety of Boetticher’s varied oeuvre. An indispensable contribution.'