IMovie-Making DAHO ’S History The screenwriter for the film was Talbot Jennings who was born in Shoshone, Idaho, went to high school in Nampa, and graduated from the University of Idaho. He later received an Oscar nomination for co-writing the script for Mutiny on the Bounty.
BY RICK JUST
114 mountain ranges and the most wild river miles in the lower 48– Idaho’s natural beauty would appear a magnet for movie productions. Film companies, however, prefer to shoot where there are people skilled in their technical trades From left to right, Robert Young, Spencer Tracy and Walter Brennan and in states offering commiserate beneath a Ponderosa Pine on the set of Northwest tax incentives. (Not Passage near McCall. The world premiere for the movie was held at the Pinney Theater in Boise. Photo courtesy of MGM. Idaho.) Flying in and One would assume a accommodating crews on remote locations drives up movie called Northwest Passage would feature the fabled budgets. Even so, Idaho can still brag about providing sets hunt for the Northwest Passage. Spoiler alert–no. After and talent for some flops and hits in Hollywood history– enduring endless weeks of hardship and fighting hostile from the infamous failure of Heaven’s Gate, to the surprise natives for reasons more complicated than I can work into hit, Napoleon Dynamite, filmed in Wallace and Preston, a sentence, Spencer Tracy, the leader of Roger’s Rangers, respectively. gives a little speech in the last couple of minutes of the Two shoots are well-remembered in Southwestern Idaho for their extensive use of local talent. In 1938 and 1939, director King Vidor shot Northwest Passage for MGM near McCall, mostly in what is today the North Beach Unit of Ponderosa State Park. It starred some big-name actors, Spencer Tracy, Robert Young, Walter Brennan, and Ruth Hussey. 22
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film about the adventures they are about to have looking for the Northwest Passage. The end.
In this film, Idaho plays the role of New Hampshire and the woods around Lake Champlain. Nine hundred McCall residents portrayed soldiers and Indians, plying their homespun skills to construct a log fort and props. Some
