Hugo Fregonese

Listed in one movie encyclopedia as an "American-born director", Hugo Fregonese was actually a native of Argentina, and spent much of his professional life in that nation's film industry. A former journalist, Fregonese came to the U.S. to attend Columbia University in 1935, whereupon he was hired by Hollywood as a technical adviser for films with Latin American themes. He made his directorial debut in 1943, by which time he'd gone back to Argentina, where he remained until resuming his Hollywood career in 1949. Many of Fregonese's American directorial efforts were westerns (Apache Drums, The Raid) and crime melodramas (Black Tuesday, Man in the Attic); his best--and subtlest--film was the 1952 prison-reform seriocomedy My Six Convicts. In the early 1960s, Fregonese churned out a brace of German-filmed westerns based on the Karl May character "Old Shatterhand"; he returned to Argentina for his last film work, which included Savage Pampas (1966) and Mas Alla del Sol (1975). For several years, Hugo Fregonese was married to actress and Howard-Hughes protégé Faith Domergue.

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide