Brian G. Hutton obit

 

Brian G Hutton. Film Director. January 1, 1935 - August 19, 2014. Aged 79

He was not on the list.

He was a relatively inexperienced, unknown film director who had only three low-budget movies under his belt at the time but the film’s star Richard Burton had the final say over who would get to direct.

As soon as he knew Hutton’s parents were Welsh he welcomed the rookie director aboard. “He and I used to sing Welsh songs together,” Hutton once recalled.

“But he used to laugh because my Welsh was actually very bad.”

Despite the film’s enduring appeal and the fact that it was box office gold when it was released Hutton was always surprised at the success the movie had.

“I’ve got to tell you, I look at it and I think to myself, ‘Gee, I wonder who did that?’” he once told an ­interviewer.”

He added: “After that, of course, I got offers to make 50 other action pictures but I didn’t want to make any. I made two and that was enough.”

Born in New York, Hutton started his career as an actor, honing his talent at the famous Actors Studio.

It wasn’t long before he landed supporting roles in major TV series such as Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Rawhide, where he met Clint Eastwood.

He also had small roles in films such as Gunfight At The OK Corral, Last Train From Gun Hill and King Creole starring Elvis Presley.

But by 1965, Hutton was keen to try his hand at directing and made the little-seen Wild Seed for Marlon Brando’s Pennebaker Productions.

His follow-up, The Pad And How To Use It, based on a play by Peter Shaffer, was a hip, sexually provocative comedy about a swinging bachelor which proved far more successful when it was released a year later.

Before Where Eagles Dare he squeezed in The Heroin Gang starring Telly Savalas and David McCallum but it’s the 1968 classic starring Burton and Eastwood for which he will be best remembered.

Perhaps even more impressive than the action on screen was the fact that Hutton was able to keep notorious hellraiser Burton in check, something director Martin Ritt had failed to do a couple years earlier on The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, when Burton’s drinking played havoc with the production.

In 1969 Hutton started work on Kelly’s Heroes, a light-hearted movie about a group of Second World War soldiers who go Awol to rob a bank behind enemy lines.

It meant working again with Eastwood, who became a lifelong friend.

lthough the film went on to become a worldwide hit, the post-production period was a nightmare after the studio ordered the movie to be drastically cut.

For Hutton it signaled the beginning of the end of his Hollywood career. He made a couple more films with Elizabeth Taylor, including Night Watch in 1973.

However by then he’d already lost his enthusiasm for film-making.

“It wasn’t something I wanted to do to begin with – not my life’s work,” he later admitted.

He added: “When I finished the second Elizabeth Taylor picture I thought, ‘Well, what am I wasting my life doing this for?’

“I mean, a gorilla could have made those movies. All I had to do was yell ‘Action’ and ‘Cut-Print’ because ­everybody was doing what they had to do anyway.”

After a seven-year hiatus he returned to the big screen to make The First Deadly Sin and High Road To China before leaving Hollywood behind in the mid-1980s for a career in real estate.

He suffered a heart attack a week before he died and is survived by his wife Victoria.

Filmography

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1955      Good Morning, Miss Dove            Student                Actor, Uncredited

1957      Fear Strikes Out                Bernie Sherwill Actor, Uncredited

1957      Gunfight at the O.K. Corral           Rick        Actor

1957      Official Detective              Branton                Episode: "The Wristwatch"

1957      Carnival Rock     Stanley Actor

1958      The Walter Winchell File               Jerry Milner        Episode: "The Bargain"

1958      The Case Against Brooklyn           Jess Johnson      Actor

1958      King Creole         Sal          Actor

1959      Last Train from Gun Hill                 Lee Smithers      Actor

1959      The Big Fisherman           John       Actor

1962      Geronimo            Indian scout        Actor, Uncredited

1962      The Interns         Dr. Joe Parelli     Actor

1965      Wild Seed                            Director

1966      The Pad and How to Use It                           Director

1968      Sol Madrid                          Director

1968      Where Eagles Dare                          Director

1970      Kelly's Heroes                    Director

1972      Zee and Co.                         Director

1973      Night Watch                       Director

1980      The First Deadly Sin                         Director

1983      High Road to China                          Director