Idaho's Movie-Making History

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 and in states offering tax incentives. (Not Idaho.) Flying in and accommodating crews on remote locations drives up budgets. Even so, Idaho can still brag about providing sets and talent for some flops and hits in Hollywood history– from the infamous failure of Heaven’s Gate, to the surprise hit, Napoleon Dynamite, filmed in Wallace and Preston, respectively.

Two shoots are well-remembered in Southwestern Idaho film about the adventures they are about to have looking for their extensive use of local talent. In 1938 and 1939, for the Northwest Passage. The end. director King Vidor shot Northwest Passage for MGM In this film, Idaho plays the role of New Hampshire and near McCall, mostly in what is today the North Beach the woods around Lake Champlain. Nine hundred McCall Unit of Ponderosa State Park. It starred some big-name residents portrayed soldiers and Indians, plying their actors, Spencer Tracy, Robert Young, Walter Brennan, and homespun skills to construct a log fort and props. Some Ruth Hussey.

From left to right, Robert Young, Spencer Tracy and Walter Brennan commiserate beneath a Ponderosa Pine on the set of Northwest Passage near McCall. The world premiere for the movie was held at the Pinney Theater in Boise.

Photo courtesy of MGM.

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.

One would assume a movie called Northwest Passage would feature the fabled hunt for the Northwest Passage. Spoiler alert–no. After enduring endless weeks of hardship and fighting hostile natives for reasons more complicated than I can work into a sentence, Spencer Tracy, the leader of Roger’s Rangers, gives a little speech in the last couple of minutes of the 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 extras took a more demanding role when a forest fire broke out nearby. According to a Forest Service newsletter called the Payette Prowler, “A large number of ‘Roger’s Rangers’ from MGM’s Northwest Passage... were among the fire fighters. This be-whiskered crew truly looked the part of a tough bunch of hombres instead of movie actors when they came off the fire line.”

Clint Eastwood at Shady Acres in Eagle during the filming of Bronco Billy.

Photo courtesy of the Eagle Museum of History and Preservation

Twelve freight cars brought in dozens of Indian drums, sugar kettles, gun racks, weaving frames, rush bottom chairs, spinning wheels, leather bellows, anvils and 1,000 cannon balls. Authenticity demanded a trove of antique decor from desks to hundreds of pelts of North American mammals right down to candlesticks.

Grandad might have told you about Northwest Passage. Mom could have shared her memories of Bronco Billy.

“Sometimes” Idaho resident, Clint Eastwood, brought his production company to the Treasure Valley for his 1980 film. Shot at locations from Boise to Ontario, with settings that included a Meridian bank, the Boise Depot, the old Ada County Courthouse, the Hungry Onion drive in, a parking lot at Lake Lowell, and the famed Ranch Club. Much of the production took place in a circus tent set up near the Boise Little Theater at Fort Boise.

On the big screen or not, Idaho is what it wants to be. Beautiful and not Hollywood.

About 1,500 people got parts as extras. The bulk cheered namelessly from the bleachers in the tent, but a few got speaking parts.

Doug Copsey, manager of the Idaho Shakespeare Festival at the time, set up auditions. “People lined up around the block for a chance to be in the movie,” he said.

As thanks for arranging the auditions, Copsey was offered a meaty little part playing a doctor. An insider tip said Clint wouldn’t be in the scene, so it would likely end up on the cutting room floor. Copsey switched to a short role as a TV newsman who stuck a mic in Eastwood’s face and asked a question. That one made the final cut and even the movie trailer.

Most extras got a nice little paycheck and walked away smiling. Those who snagged a speaking part still get residuals. “I get ten bucks every time the movie plays somewhere,” Copsey said. “I call it my beer fund.”

Production companies sometimes have a reputation for swooping into a community and treating locationsand people badly. That wasn’t the case with Bronco Billy. According to locals, Eastwood, co-stars Sandra Locke, Geoffrey Lewis, Scatman Cruthers and crew couldn’t have been nicer.

The Gem state may be an underdog when vying for film productions, but as Eastwood says in Bronco Billy, “I’m who I want to be.” On the big screen or not, Idaho is what it wants to be. Beautiful and not Hollywood.