Brian G. Hutton

A genre filmmaker capable of crafting everything from comedies to crime films to thrillers, Brian G. Hutton is an actor and director best known for his 1970 film "Kelly's Heroes." Breaking into the industry in the 1950s through bit parts in television serials like "Gunsmoke," "Perry Mason," and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," Hutton paid his dues to eventually move up to directing feature films. His feature directorial debut was 1965's "Wild Seed," a melodrama produced by Marlon Brando Sr. In 1968, Hutton released two espionage films, "Sol Madrid" and the World War II-based "Where Eagles Dare," his first collaboration with Clint Eastwood. Hutton returned to both the World War II setting for his most famous work, the war comedy "Kelly's Heroes." This film also starred Eastwood as the leader of a platoon who uses the chaos of war to stage a bank heist in enemy-occupied France. Great Britain's Channel 4 has subsequently named "Kelly's Heroes" number 34 in their 100 Greatest War Films list. Hutton continued to direct through the '70s and into the '80s, including two films starring Elizabeth Taylor, the relationship drama "Zee and Co." and the horror mystery "Night Watch." Hutton's final film was the action-adventure "High Road to China" in 1983. Set in 1920s Asia, "High Road to China" concerns a fighter pilot plays by Tom Selleck charged with finding an heiress' lost father.