Crew
Budd Boetticher
Writer
Lucien Ballard
Director of Photography
Budd Boetticher
Director
Raúl Lavista
Original Music Composer
Cast
CA
Carlos Arruza
Himself
Anthony Quinn
Narrator
Arruza
He Was Number One - THE BEST...And He Died That Way!
197273m6.8 (4)
Documentary
Eight years in the making, Boetticher’s portrait of his longtime friend, the famous bullfighter Carlos Arruza, was a labor of love that the renowned director of westerns pursued despite contending with illnesses, bankruptcy, jail time, and lucrative offers from Hollywood. The result is an astonishing work of poetry, immediacy, and violence that fearlessly wrestles with the filmmaker’s own ambivalence about the titular matador’s triumphs prior to his death by automobile accident at the age of 46.
