Oregon already has an official bird (the Western Meadowlark), official animal (the beaver, of course) and an official crustacean (Dungeness crab, duh). So, what about an official state film? As we recently wrote, a resolution in the stage legislature has called for the 1975 movie, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” to be designated as the official film of Oregon.
The reasoning for the declaration includes the fact that “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” was filmed almost entirely at Salem’s Oregon State Hospital, and that the movie was adapted from a novel by the late Oregon-based author Ken Kesey.
Jack Nicholson’s character, Randle “R.P.” McMurphy was also described as “an anti-authoritarian folk hero” whose rebellious streak and unconventional approach were also examples of “the irrepressible spirit of the people of Oregon.”
Well, maybe that all qualifies the multiple Oscar-winning “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” to be considered Oregon’s official film. Or maybe not. We offered up some alternate suggestions. And readers did, too, in some cases agreeing with our candidates and in other cases offering their own nominations. Here’s a look at some of what readers had to say.
Like several others, one reader’s top three Oregon-filmed movies included two that we mentioned as official film candidates, the coming-of-age drama, “Stand By Me,” and the raucous comedy, “Animal House.” The reader agreed that “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” was a top choice.
Another reader wrote, “While I favor ‘Animal House’ because I got to be an extra during the parade, you forgot an extremely important movie that STARTED the movie industry in Oregon. (And the first movie that was done outside Hollywood, and started the ‘live’ filming of action and I’m sure a few other firsts!)”
The movie in question? Buster Keaton’s silent classic, “The General” (1927), which filmed on location in Cottage Grove, and, as the reader claims, “actually wrecked a live steam train on the old Bohemia timber company railway. (Which also was used for the train / railroad in ‘Stand by Me’).”
“The General” is a great movie, Keaton was a genius, so we have absolutely no problem with considering it as a candidate for Oregon’s official film. In case you didn’t know, the film is set during the Civil War, and Keaton plays a Confederate engineer who, as the Turner Classic Movies site says, “fights to save his train and his girlfriend from the Union army.”
Keaton is quoted in the historian Kevin Brownlow’s “The Parade’s Gone By…,” a classic history of silent film, referring to “The General” as “my pet.” Though the story was based on an incident that took place in the south, Keaton turned to Oregon locations, he said, because he needed narrow-gauge railroads, and “in Oregon, the whole state is honeycombed with narrow-gauge railroads for all the lumber mills.”
“The General” was also among the first features named to the first National Film Registry list, a class that included “Intolerance,” “Citizen Kane,” “Some Like It Hot,” “Sunset Blvd.,” “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “Modern Times,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned How to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” among others.
Other reader suggestions for Oregon’s official film are works with fewer laurels. Though many critics praised it, for example, the Western, “The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid” (1972), isn’t widely remembered. Cliff Robertson and Rober Duvall starred in the film, which tells a story focused on the outlaws Jesse James and Cole Younger, and was filmed in southern Oregon locations, including Jacksonville and Gold Hill.
Then there’s “Paint Your Wagon,” a big-budget 1969 musical Western, loosely adapted from a Broadway show with a score by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe (”My Fair Lady”). Unlike “The Sound of Music,” however, which was also adapted from a Broadway musical, “Paint Your Wagon” featured a cast who were hardly known for their singing ability. And that was just the beginning of the film’s problems.
Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood starred as friends and prospectors in the tale, set during the California Gold Rush. Both fell in love with the same woman, played by “Breathless” star Jean Seberg, or all people. What with Marvin’s attempts at warbling, a soundtrack featuring such tunes as “Hand Me Down That Can o’ Beans,” and a reportedly chaotic production, it was hardly surprising that, despite a then-hefty $20 million budget, “Paint Your Wagon” left critics mostly unenthused.
But, despite all that, “Paint Your Wagon” did film in some of Oregon’s most gorgeous places, including the Wallowa Mountains, and northeast of Baker City.
A reader who apparently disagrees with the critics who bludgeoned “The Postman” when it opened in 1997 picked it as a contender for Oregon’s official film. Anybody who pays attention to TV knows that Kevin Costner’s contemporary Western series, “Yellowstone,” is a massive hit. The show, which airs on the Paramount Network and can be streamed at such sites as Philo and Fubo, has made Costner hotter than ever.
Which is good news for him, because after “The Postman,” a post-apocalyptic drama directed by and starring Costner, bombed at the box office, Costner’s career was cold as a snow bank. But again, viewers can admire some central Oregon scenery in the film, so there’s that.
