Unsung Auteurs: Brian G. Hutton

By Erin Free

FilmInk salutes the work of creatives who have never truly received the credit that they deserve. In this installment: director Brian G. Hutton, who helmed Where Eagles Dare, Kelly’s Heroes and High Road To China.

It’s easy to be an Unsung Auteur when filmmaking is not necessarily a true calling or vocation, but rather something you just, well, fell into. This would appear to be the case with Brian G. Hutton, who began his creative life as an actor, spent his middle years as a film director, and lived out his final days working in real estate. We’re not sure how Brian G. Hutton fared in the property development game, but his impact as an actor was limited, and nowhere near as impressive as his relatively small body of work as a director. Though not as driven to the task as most successful directors, Brian G. Hutton nevertheless helmed a number of excellent features, most notably a truly cracking Clint Eastwood double-shot with 1968’s Where Eagles Dare and 1970’s Kelly’s Heroes. He might not have sought any real appreciation himself, but we’re more than happy to sing Brian G. Hutton’s praises.

Brian Geoffrey Hutton was born in 1935 in New York City, and followed an initial interest in acting by studying at the famed Actors Studio. From there, Hutton was cast in a number of eye-catching roles in TV series like Gunsmoke, Sugarfoot, Rawhide, The Rifleman and many more, and feature films like King Creole, The Case Against Brooklyn, and Gunfight At The OK Corral. Hutton made his directing debut in 1965 with Wild Seed, which was produced by the young Albert S. Ruddy (who would go onto produce The Godfather, and is played by Miles Teller in the mini-series documenting the making of that classic, The Offer), and was initially set up as a vehicle for Marlon Brando through his production company Pennebaker. By the mid-sixties, however, Brando was too old for the central role of the film’s youthful drifter, and the wonderfully idiosyncratic Michael Parks took the part instead. He and Celia Kaye (the eventual wife of movie making iconoclast John Milius) share great chemistry as two troubled souls on the road. Alive with youthful energy and a rebellious spirit, the low budget Wild Seed marked a fascinating debut for Brian G. Hutton. He followed it up with 1966’s The Pad (And How To Use It), a very mid-sixties affair about two men pursuing the same woman.

Though both low budget affairs, prolific producer Elliot Kastner sensed Hutton’s talent and hired the young director to helm 1968’s Sol Madrid, a now largely forgotten James Bond redux in which David McCallum (hot off the iconic TV series The Man From UNCLE) stars as a government agent charged with taking down a mobster and a drug kingpin. Like his previous film, Sol Madrid brims and bustles with vibrant and colourful 1960s spirit, and the director really showed his flair for culturally on-the-money material of the time. Producer Elliot Kastner was duly impressed, and he hired Hutton to direct 1968’s Where Eagles Dare, a big budget WW2 actioner boasting an original screenplay by thriller master Allistair MacLean, who would later turn it into a novel. Starring the unlikely but exemplary duo of Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton as Allied soldiers on a daring mission to rescue a major player from a castle-keep high in the Bavarian Alps, Where Eagles Dare is an absolute belter of an adventure, with Eastwood unforgettable as a relentless Nazi-killing machine.

Where Eagles Dare was a well-deserved hit, and Hutton found himself with an equally big budget for 1970’s WW2 heist flick Kelly’s Heroes. Penned by fellow Unsung Auteur Troy Kennedy Martin (The Italian Job), this very unusual WW2 flick again features Clint Eastwood (at his dry, cool, taciturn, muscular best) assembling a wacky crew of misfits (including Donald Sutherland’s very curious proto-hippie, Don Rickles’ wiseass, and Telly Savalas’ tough nut) to sneak behind enemy lines to steal a cache of pilfered Nazi treasure. Though not often mentioned as top-tier Eastwood, Kelly’s Heroes is one of the superstar’s most engagingly unconventional films, and Martin’s script is literally packed to bursting with original characters, quirky dialogue, and excellent action set pieces, all of which are expertly juggled by Brian G. Hutton.

Brian G. Hutton with Don Rickles on the set of *Kelly’s Heroes*.

After two WW2 actioners, Hutton moved on to two Elizabeth Taylor vehicles (perhaps recommended by her on-again, off-again husband Richard Burton) with 1972’s X, Y & Zee (in which she plays a vicious, amoral wife desperately trying to thwart the new extracurricular romance of her husband, played by Michael Caine) and 1973’s Night Watch (in which Liz freaks the fuck out as a wealthy, mentally unstable woman who witnesses a murder and then gets gaslit big time), neither of which are often discussed when Liz Taylor’s screen work is assessed. That said, they are both compelling and highly enjoyable, and Night Watch in particular offers more than a few campy delights. This Liz Taylor double-shot, however, temporarily turned Hutton away from movies. “It wasn’t something I wanted to do to begin with – it’s not my life’s work,” Hutton said of his voluntary bow-out. “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.”

Hutton’s retirement from directing lasted seven years, until his friend and mentor Elliot Kastner came calling. Kastner was in a jam on his latest production, 1980’s The First Deadly Sin, the director of which, Roman Polanski, had just fled the US for France on statutory rape charges. Hutton slipped seamlessly into the director’s chair for his old friend, and delivered a strong, well-paced and highly enjoyable crime thriller in which Frank Sinatra (very impressive in his final leading dramatic role) pursues a serial killer through New York while tending to his seriously ailing wife (Faye Dunaway), who is recovering from a botched kidney operation.

Brian G. Hutton with Liz Taylor and Michael Caine on the set of *X, Y & Zee*

Hutton played fill-in again on what would turn out to be his last movie with 1983’s High Road To China, which was first to be directed by John Huston and then Sidney J. Furie. Based on the book by Aussie novelist Jon Cleary (who created the famous Australian detective Scobie Malone), the film was derided as a rip-off of Raiders Of The Lost Ark upon release, and even stars Tom Selleck, the famous first choice to play Indiana Jones. This highly reductive assessment is more than a little unfair, however, firstly because Cleary’s novel predates the Spielberg-Lucas smash by decades, and secondly because, well, it’s quite an impressive piece of work. Selleck is excellent as a boozy pilot hired by a wealthy heiress (the singularly charming Bess Armstrong) to find her missing father, and the film moves along at a nice clip, and is filled with likeable characters and fun set-pieces.

It’s strangely fitting that Brian G. Hutton’s final film (he passed away in 2014 at the age of 79 long after he left the film industry to concentrate on real estate) would be a rock-solid piece of entertainment that he was drafted into late, but ultimately turned into something strong and rich with feeling. Though obviously a fine cinematic craftsman, Brian G. Hutton also imbued his films with something a little extra in terms of attitude and originality, and for that, he should be duly celebrated.