REAL TO REEL
COLORADO’S PLACE ON THE SILVER SCREEN
By Jon de Vos
Colorful Colorado has been the site for the filming of thousands of movies. There are over six hundred listed on www.imdb.com alone! Among them are some great stars like Robert Redford in Downhill Racer or John Wayne in True Grit. Remember Woody Allen in Sleeper or Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber? But for the true Colorado, check out Robin Beeck’s 1998 classic, Grampa’s in the Tuff Shed, celebrating Nederland’s frozen dead guy, Bredo Morstoel, on ice without skates since 1993. Beeck followed his award-winning short with the 2003 cult favorite, Grampa’s Still in the Tuff Shed.
Not all of the movies made in Colorado were of such obvious quality. Take 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain, filmed entirely at Elitch’s in Denver, apparently while the management and staff weren’t looking. While arguably the high point of Hulk Hogan’s acting career, this 1998 movie also starred Loni Anderson in a desperate comeback effort. Okay, how bad was it? Suffice to say you’d be better off renting Gigli or Battlefield Earth.
An interesting phenomenon in early Hollywood was white actors playing ethnic roles. Taza, Son of Cochise, filmed in southwestern Colorado, must have raised some eyebrows even in 1954, starring Rock Hudson in red face with a husky West LA accent.
Lots of Colorado westerns dealt with eternal themes, like which is faster – the railroad or the stagecoach? In the 1950 comedy, Ticket to Tomahawk, an unscrupulous stagecoach baron tries to stop history by proving not only that evil is its own reward, but also that his coach can get to Tomahawk, Colorado faster than the railroad baron’s train. Of course, Johnny-Behind-The-Deuces, played by Dan Dailey, cannot let him succeed. But wait! There in the back of the coach – that dance hall girl, Clara ... could it be? Yes, it is – an uncredited Marilyn Monroe!
No list of Colorado movies would be complete without including the musical biography of one of Colorado’s most famous native sons, Alfred Packer: The Musical. Filmed in 1993 in southern Colorado, this movie was written and directed by Trey Parker of South Park fame back when he was in college, and is clearly a movie one can sink teeth into.
Colorado has also been the location for truly great horror movies. The 1980 movie, The Shining, with Jack Nicholson, was mostly filmed in Colorado, while the equally good 1997 TV mini-series, The Shining, with Steven Weber, was completely filmed in Colorado, mainly at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park.
Another horror movie claiming a Colorado setting was the literal camp thriller, Decampitated. Why, oh why, is America’s youth so dumb as to seek shelter in a creepy old cabin when their car breaks down in the woods? Why do they never flee when the first half of their party is chainsawed into burger bits? This movie makes absolutely no effort to answer these important questions. Instead, the characters thrash around like actors with their heads cut off, pausing only briefly to bind up horribly fatal wounds with strips of duct tape. The horror, the horror! And that’s just the acting!
Not counted in the six-hundred-plus movies filmed in Colorado were hundreds of short silent films produced in the early 1900s without scripts, or crews – just actors and a cameraman making it up as they went along. One of the most prolific of these actors/writers/producers/directors was Gilbert M. “Broncho Billy” Anderson. Widely regarded as the father of the “movie cowboy” between 1906 and 1923, Anderson made just shy of 400 of these American epics, termed “Oaters” for the oats they had to haul around for the horses. Sporting lurid titles like, Red Blood and Yellow and The Treachery of Broncho Billy’s Pal, these single-reel shorts filled theaters in the east with wide-eyed audiences hungering for manly action.
Colorful Colorado has truly left its mark on the cinema industry with a legacy of great and not-so-great films over the years. Keep an eye out for Colorado scenery in films to come. Who knows? Grand County could be next!
READ MORE STORIES FROM THIS ISSUE:
• Winter 2011 Articles |
