Spaghetti Western Directors, Screenwriters, Cinematographers

Spaghetti Western Director ~ Hans Billian

Hans Joachim Hubert Backe was born on April 15, 1918, in Breslau, Silesia, Germany. Billian originally wanted to become an opera singer but due to the deterioration of his voice during his nine years in military service he had to abandon this plan. After World War II, he settled in West Germany and started to work as an actor at theatres in Hamburg and Wolfenbüttel. He later began to work also as a director's assistant.

In 1950, he started to work for various German film producers. Especially, his work for Constantin-Film proved to be successful until 1961 when he left this company to work as a freelance screenwriter and director. Until the late 1960s, he wrote films or directed films that fell under the category Heimatfilm, such as “Ich kauf' mir lieber einen Tirolerhut” in 1965. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he directed softcore sex comedies, like “Pudelnackt in Oberbayern” (1969) (a Bavarian sex comedy pioneer), “Die Jungfrauen von Bumshausen” (Run, Virgin, Run) (1970), and “Das Mädchen mit der heißen Masche” (Loves of a French Pussycat) (1972) (starring Sybil Danning).

In 1973, Billian directed hardcore short-length loops for the Swedish company Venus Film. When the ban on hardcore pornography was lifted in Germany, he started to direct numerous short-length hardcore films there. In the 1990s, he directed porn videos, especially for the producer Tabu of Bochum, but these videos fell far from the quality of his work in the 1970s.

Billian died in Gräfelfing, Bavaria, Germany on December 18, 2007 at the age of 89.

BILLIAN, Hans (aka Hans Billan, Phillip Halliday, Christian Kessler) [4/15/1918, Breslau, Silesia, Germany– 12/18/2007, Gräfelfing, Bavaria, Germany] – director, writer, actor.

Fräulein Surehand – 1975

Spaghetti Western Screenwriter ~ Chip Baker

Chip Baker was born on November 15, 1970, somewhere in the U.K. I can find no biographical information on him.

Baker has written screenplays for  two Spaghetti westerns: “6 Bullets to Hell” in 2016 and “Bullets for the Bad” in 2018 with Danny Garcia (Daniel Garcia), Jose L. Villanueva and Nick Reynolds.

BAKER, Chip [British] – producer, director, writer, cinematographer, composer, film editor, founded Chip Baker Films.

Reverend Colt – 2013, 2016 [Film was never made.]

6 Bullets to Hell – 2016

Bullets for the Bad – 2017 (co)

Spaghetti Western Cinematographer ~ Ray Binger

Ray Oliver Binger was born on November16, 1888, in Browntown, Wisconsin. He was an American cinematographer. He started working in Hollywood in 1924, mastering the art of process photography. By 1934 he had gravitated towards special effects work. He was one of the many technicians involved in bringing authenticity to “The Hurricane” in 1937, and was instrumental in the plane crash sequence in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Foreign Correspondent” in 1940. Not all his assignments were quite that showy, however. He received an Oscar nomination in the category Best Special Effects for generating fake crowds to fill up the baseball stands in 1942's “The Pride of the Yankees”. He was nominated twice more in the same category for The “Long Voyage Home” (1940) and “The North Star” (1943).

Binger died in Seal Beach, California, on September 29, 1970 at the age of 81.

Ray’s only Euro-western was “The Men of the Borth” in 1930.

BINGER, Ray (aka Ray O. Binger, R.O. Binger) (Ray Oliver Binger) [11/16/1888, Browntown, Wisconsin, U.S.A. – 9/29/1970, Seal Beach, California, U.S.A.] – cinematographer, cameraman, SFX, married to Sarah Jane Flemming [1894-1967] (1917-1967) father of Olive Patricia Binger Losada [1921-1982].

The Men of the North - 1930