James D'Arc, Hollywood films made in Utah (Season 1, Ep. 5 - Part 2)

**Brad Westwood** (0:05)
Welcome to the podcast, Speak Your Piece. This is a podcast about Utah's history. My name's Brad Westwood, and I'm from the Utah Department of Heritage and Arts.
Today's speaker is Jim D'Arc, retired curator and adjunct professor of history, or rather, I think you were adjunct of, was it communications at BYU?

**James D'Arc** (0:29)
Theater and media arts and the American Studies Program.

**Brad Westwood** (0:34)
And you taught all together at BYU in your field of interest for?

**James D'Arc** (0:40)
30 years, film history courses, film and American culture, and film genres.

**Brad Westwood** (0:46)
So many things have been, I've personally appreciated over the years. You did a wonderful film series at the Fort Douglas for an event that was sponsored by the Naomi and Hal Tate Foundation, where we brought a film into, or we showed it as it was to be seen originally in a film setting, I mean, in a theater setting.
It was just amazing. Tell me a little bit about some of those films that you shared and why you selected the films in that series.

**James D'Arc** (1:19)
Well, this was a series of films that were shot mostly in Utah that foregrounded Utah landscapes and how they were used in significant American motion pictures, including one made in 1947 with Joel McCrae and the sultry blonde Veronica Lake called Ramrod, filmed entirely in Zion National Park and in the environs. A very adult type of Western in terms of thematics and violence that many film historians now call film noir or dark film.

**Brad Westwood** (2:02)
And that was our centennial film for 1947, was it not?

**James D'Arc** (2:06)
And I dare say that most of your listeners don't even know that Utah had a centennial film in 1947 that raised such a ruckus in the Utah legislature that legislators fought over whether we should have this film as a centennial film because it was so violent. And Governor Herbert Ma had to come in and almost like in a boxing ring, separate the combatants and say, all right, we can't have any more of this. Ramrod is becoming Utah's centennial film and that's it.
So there was a terrific star-studded premiere in Salt Lake in February of 1947 And key broadcasters from the nation came to Salt Lake City and had live national hookups for this premiere.
And the stars, Joel McCrae, Veronica Lake and the director, Andre Datoff, came in a special chartered train from Los Angeles. The Ramrod Special. So it was a big deal and Governor Ma could tell the legislators, I told you so, this was a big, big success. And it's a well-respected film even now.

**Brad Westwood** (3:22)
Jim, in the previous segment, we spoke about how these films are not only entertainment, but they document a Utah that may have passed or it's so radically different.
Tell us about some of those films. Let's talk about the use of national parks. Let's talk about beautiful landscapes without telephone poles or any kind of sign of modern life. I mean, people, Hollywood came here because of these wonderful landscapes, which in many ways are passed now.

**James D'Arc** (3:57)
You've hit on a topic that I'm very passionate about, that Hollywood movies and those made by other countries in the state of Utah are not only of interest to us because of the economic benefits or even the entertainment value that it has to people all around the world or even to tourism.
Rather, I look at these vintage Hollywood films serving a purpose to document Utah's landscape the way it was and no longer is. I'll use two films as an example. My friend Flicka was a very popular, beautifully photographed technicolor film in 1943 starring Preston Foster and a young Roddy McDowell, who later became a very significant Hollywood star. These films were photographed up in a beautiful, sprawling, meadow-filled area on Cedar Mountain called Duck Creek, which now is a very heavily patronized vacation area full of hundreds of second homes and vacation cabins.
Well, my friend Flicka shows these broad vistas with horses running and cattle being raised in a way that no other motion pictures that the state has documented has ever produced. So when you watch my friend Flicka, Thunderhead's son of Flicka, and a sequel called The Green Grass of Wyoming, yes I know, Wyoming in Utah, preserves so many beautiful color motion picture footage of this area that I think it serves the purpose of Utah history. It shows where the rivers were, and I emphasize were, how broad and expansive these meadows were, the various farms and ranches that were up in this area, that there's nothing else to equal any motion picture footage of how these areas looked to Utahns. The Lone Ranger starring Clayton Moore was a feature film inspired by the popular television series in 1956, all filmed in the Knab area. And at the very beginning of the film, you see some outlaws riding down Knab Canyon, which is now the site of the best friend's animal sanctuary.