Best Picture Winners: Patton

Patton (1970

Many people have complained about the Oscars becoming too political, but I don’t think that’s the reason for the current decline in interest in the ceremony. Other years have had far more political overtones. 

Take the 1978 Academy Awards, for example.

When Vanessa Redgrave was announced as the winner for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Julia, she used her moment on the platform to denounce the “the hoodlums” attacking the Palestinians. The audience responded with both applause and loud boos. Later in the ceremony, before presenting the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, Paddy Chayefsky chastised Redgrave for her remarks and was loudly cheered.

Whatever view you take on this issue, you’ve got to admit this was great theater and greatly entertaining.

The problem with Oscars now is that the politics are so very monolithic and boring. Someone will get up and say, “Down with Trump” or “Racism is bad,” and everyone will cheer. Perhaps not everyone in the Academy has the same political views, but it appears that only one set of views may be freely expressed. 

In 1970, when Patton was released -- or when Patton won the Oscar in 1971 -- this wasn't the case. The Vietnam war was raging. Just as the nation was divided by the war, so was the Academy. Everyone knew that John Wayne and Jane Fonda had diametrically opposed views, but both had a place in the Academy and the Oscar ceremonies.

Francis Ford Coppola has said that when he was writing the screenplay for Patton, he knew that some in the audience would view the general as a hero and others as a jingoistic warmonger --so he included both Patton’s slapping a soldier for cowardice and his rescue of the soldiers of Bastogne. People who opposed the Vietnam war and those who supported it saw arguments for their case in the film. So they voted for it. And it won Best Picture because it's a film that is art rather than propaganda. It presents the complexity of this man, of war, and of life.

The film, fortunately for us here at Movie Churches, presents clergy but avoids simplicity in its presentation of the church.

One device used throughout the film is cutting to German military headquarters and listening in on German officers' comments about Patton. Field Marshall Erwin Rommel (Karl Michael Vogler) mentions that Patton (George C. Scott) “prays on his knees but curses like a stable boy.”

We are shown this contrast in Patton's personality when a group of clergymen meets with him. They are introduced as “men from the states here to look after the spiritual welfare of the men.” Patton greets them warmly. One of the chaplains says, “I was glad to see a Bible by your bed. Do you find time to read it?” Patton answers, “I sure do. Every G*d d**n day.”

Patton always seems to show great respect for the church and the clergy. When he entered the liberated city of Messina, Italy, he knelt before the Bishop of the city to receive his blessing. On the other hand, his theology wasn't strictly orthodox for a Christian. He also believed in reincarnation.

One of the most damaging moments in his career occurred shortly after Patton’s successful campaign in Sicily: the Slapping Incident. While visiting men in the infirmary, he encountered a man who claimed to be there because of shell shock. He had lost the nerve to fight. Patton reprimanded him for his cowardice and said his presence was an affront to the brave men in the tent who had been physically wounded in battle. He slapped the man and demanded he be removed from the tent.

This incident made headlines back in the States and caused great turmoil in political and military circles. Many demanded that Patton be booted out of service, or at least demoted. In the film, he rightly fears his career might be over. What bothers him most is that he won’t be able to fulfill what he feels is his divinely appointed destiny of glory in battle.

Patton goes to a church, kneels near the altar, and recites Psalm 63:

“O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee:
my soul thirsteth for thee,
my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;
to see thy power and thy glory,
so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.
Because thy lovingkindness is better than life,
my lips shall praise thee.
Thus will I bless thee while I live:
I will lift up my hands in thy name.
My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness;
and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips:
when I remember thee upon my bed,
and meditate on thee in the night watches.
Because thou hast been my help,
therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.
My soul followeth hard after thee:
thy right hand upholdeth me.
But those that seek my soul, to destroy it, shall go into the lower parts of the earth.
They shall fall by the sword:
they shall be a portion for foxes.
But the king shall rejoice in God;
every one that sweareth by him shall glory:
but the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped.”

He seems most fervent in the prayer for enemies to fall by the sword and be the portion of foxes, but he does ask for God’s will to be done.

Patton’s command is restored for what is arguably the most important battle of his career, the Seige of Bastogne. Part of the Battle of Bulge, this was the last great German offensive action of the war. In the Ardennes Woods of Belgium, a small contingent of American soldiers held out against the great Nazi war machine. On Christmas Day of 1944, the Nazi forces demanded that General Anthony McAuliffe surrender. His one-word reply was, “Nuts!” 

Patton said a man of such eloquence must be rescued.

But there were obstacles to that rescue, chief of which was brutal winter weather hindering adequate aerial coverage for an attack. Patton recognized the problem and said, “If we have 24 hours of decent weather, we might make it.” He was told the weather forecast was for more snow, and his advisor said they would have to wait. Patton said, “We’re going to keep moving.”

Nonetheless, Patton realized he needed help, so he called in the Third Army Chaplain (Lionel Murton).

“You wanted to see me, General?”

“Oh, yes, Chaplain. I’m sick and tired of the 3rd Army having to fight the Germans without the support of the Supreme Command, no gasoline, and now this ungodly weather. I want a prayer. A weather prayer.”

“A weather prayer, sir?”

“Yes, let’s see if you can’t get God working with us on this thing.”

“It’ll take a pretty thick rug for that kind of praying.”

“I don’t care if it takes a flying carpet.”

“Well, I don’t know how this is gonna be received, General. Praying for good weather so we can kill our fellow man.”

“Well, I can assure you, sir, because of my intimate relations with the Almighty… If you write a good prayer, we’ll have good weather. And I expect that prayer within an hour.”

“Yes, sir.”

The chaplain writes a prayer, and Patton prays it.

“Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech thee of thy great goodness to restrain this immoderate weather with which we’ve had to contend. Grant us fair weather for battle. Graciously harken unto us as soldiers who call upon thee that armed with thy power we may advance from victory to victory and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish thy justice among men and nations. Amen.”

Director Franklin Schaffner allows us to hear the prayer over brutal scenes of battle as Patton’s forces savage the German troops. (It’s rather amazing that this film is rated PG. The PG-13 rating didn’t exist in 1970, but I would think today the realistic violence of the film could earn it an R rating.)

Patton doesn’t forget to whom he owes the conditions that allowed for the attack. He says, “Weather’s perfect. Cod, get me that Chaplain. He stands in good with the Lord, and I want him decorated.”

But after the victory in Europe, Patton is not sent to the ongoing war in the Pacific. Patton recognizes his day is done. He remembers that Roman conquerors would have a slave whisper in his ear, “All glory is fleeting.” I do wish we had seen the clergy in the film more strongly remind Patton that God’s glory was eternal. Still, we’re giving the clergy and the churches in the film a Three Steeple rating.

Taking One for the Team: School Sports Month!

Trouble Along the Way (1953)

Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation is a book that has been stirring up some waves in the church these days. The book is a critique of views of masculinity in the American Evangelical Church of the 20th and 21st centuries -- all quite interesting stuff -- but it has little to do with today’s film because as it turns out, John Wayne isn’t in an evangelical church but rather in a small Roman Catholic college.

And some of Wayne’s behavior in Trouble Along the Way (1953) is, well, troublesome. I had high hopes for this film because it starred not only Wayne but also the delightful Donna Reed and was directed by Michael Curtiz (The Adventures of Robin Hood, White Christmas, and Casablanca). 

One of the posters for the film has this line, “That All-Man Quiet Man has a new kind of dame to tame!” The aforementioned “dame” is Donna Reed, who comes across a bit like the librarian Mary (if George Bailey had never been born).

She plays Alice Singleton, a social worker investigating football coach Steve Williams (Wayne) for his fitness as a parent. Steve’s wife left Steve and their daughter Carol (Sherry Jackson) when the girl was a baby (she’s 11 when the film opens). Williams is an often-fired football coach who lives in an apartment over a bar. We clearly see that Miss (officer of the court) Singleton's concerns about Williams’ parenting are understandable.

So what does Williams do as Singleton investigates the case? He drunkenly bursts into her office, mansplains to her about why she’s single, and forces her into an embrace and kiss. This is stupid and unacceptable on any number of levels. But since he’s the movie star, this is romantic of course.

Fortunately, this is Movie Churches and we aren’t discussing the Duke in this film. We get to talk about the priest who hires him, Charles Coburn as Father Charles Burke. The priest is the President of St. Anthony’s College. The school is in financial trouble because Burke doesn’t take tuition from over eighty percent of his students. He is very proud of this monetary recklessness.

Not surprisingly, his superiors are looking to close the school because it is $170,000 in debt. Burke tells them, “When I take a vow of poverty, I go all the way.” (Of course, that isn’t how a vow of poverty works. It’s like someone said they were taking a vow of poverty because they were running up debt on a credit card.)

Word gets to the students of the college that the school will soon close, so they gather under his window and sing Auld Lang Syne. The priests who compose the faculty are quite concerned, of course. But he assures them they shouldn’t be afraid because it is only a matter of money, so why be fearful?

Burke asks the priests if they have a Bible and they look about furiously for one. Burke says, “Do you have a Bible in the house or do you have to go to a hotel?” (An admittedly funny line.) Burke then reads Deuteronomy 32:15 but what he reads sounded nothing like the verse when I looked it up. I don’t know what is worse about this Catholic College, that they have so few Bibles or that the President of the school seems ignorant of the Scriptures.

So Burke comes up with a brilliant scheme to save the school. He'll start a football program that will raise money to save the school. This isn’t much worse than fundraising schemes we’ve seen in other church films, such as writing a hit song or betting on horse races. But it’s still a crapshoot and pretty stupid.

Burke hires Williams, a coach with a shady reputation, and gives him a free hand to run the football program. Williams sees an opportunity to make some money and brings some coach friends to come to work with him. He will let the school keep all the gate receipts, but he and his friends will make money selling parking, programs, and concessions.

Of course, they need a winning team to make this work, so Williams recruits players who have played professionally and others who don’t meet the college’s academic standards. But the shady practices aren’t Williams’ alone. Burke puts pressure on the presidents of other Catholic schools such as Notre Dame to play against them. This seems to be not in line with the regular collegiate practices.

It all works for a while, and St. Anthony’s makes money. Williams and his friends make money, too, but his ex-wife notifies the press about Williams’ unscrupulous practices in order to gain custody of their daughter. It becomes quite the scandal in the press.

Burke fires Williams and professes shock, shock! that unethical practices took place in the college’s football program. The only reason he wouldn’t know the problems of the program he began is because he was a fool or he kept himself willingly ignorant. This is not unlike many college presidents in the NCAA. But as Burke says, “You won by going against the very principles we teach!”

After firing Williams, Burke does apologize to him for putting him in a position where the only possible way to succeed was to cheat.

So Burke agrees to resign from his presidency when his higher-ups say they will save the school once it is free of his incompetent leadership. Though John Wayne doesn’t corrupt the evangelical church in this film, he does corrupt college football. But really, Father Burke plays a part in the corrupting as well, earning a sad Movie Churches rating of Two Steeples.

Fight Church Month: The Quiet Man

The Quiet Man (1952)
Should a clergyperson be part of the community or aloof from it? Should a priest be a regular guy, going out with the crowd for a beer, or cloistered away? Should he be holy and set apart or should the priest in a small Irish town join a scheme to convince a belligerent brother to allow his sister to marry the new American in town, even if the plan involves deception?

Okay, that last question is a little more specific and probably only applies to the plot of The Quiet Man, but the other questions also apply to the clergymen in the film. (And to all other clergymen. And clergywomen. But there are certainly no clergywomen in this film set in a small, Irish village in the 1920’s.)

The Quiet Man is much beloved (it’s also one of my favorites), featuring Oscar-winning direction by John Ford and Winton Hoch’s cinematography of the very green Irish locations. In 2013, the film was chosen by Congress to be on the National Film Registry. John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara star, one of the great screen couples (comparable to Bogart and Bacall, Hepburn and Tracy, and Astaire and Rogers). Many people -- like my wife, Mindy -- have seen the film’s classic scene of Wayne and O’Hara’s first kiss without seeing the film because of its use in E.T.

The Quiet Man tells the story of an American boxer, Sean Thornton (Wayne), who returns to his ancestral home in Inisfree, Ireland. He falls in love with a local woman, Mary Kate Danaher (O’Hara). Mary Kate’s brother and guardian, Squire “Red” Danaher (Victor McLaglen), opposes the match. The whole town conspires to convince him to approve of the marriage, which is where we come to the clerical moral quandary. And the clergy and their moral quandaries interest us here at Movie Churches.

The town character, Michaleen Flynn (Barry Fitzgerald), convinces everyone in town to deceive Red into thinking that the only chance he has to marry the town’s richest widow, Sarah Tillane (Mildred Natwick), is to marry off his sister as well. When Red approaches the widow at his sister’s wedding, he discovers it was a ruse. He then confronts Father Peter Lonergan (Ward Bond), the town priest in front of the town. “All lied as part of the conspiracy. It’s bad enough for you people, but my own priest!”

Red may be presented as the villain in the film, and he doesn’t treat his sister well, but he has a point here. Shouldn’t a parishioner expect his priest to oppose deception, or at least not participate in it? And that isn’t the priest’s only deception in the film.

Another prominent clergyman in town, is a married Anglican priest named Cyril Playfair (Arthur Shields) whose worship services have only two or three attendees (and that includes his wife, Elizabeth.) His bishop is coming to observe his ministry, and Playfair fears he’ll be removed from his parish. Father Lonergan asks his parishioners to pretend to be Playfair’s, and even covers his own clerical collar to pretend to be an Anglican member of the congregation.

Both of these acts of deception seem to be done by Father Lonergan with the best of motives, and he seems to be following the lead of the town. But he isn’t making a principled stand of integrity. He certainly isn’t living out the words of Jesus, “Let your ‘yes’ be yes and your ‘no’ be no.”

When Thornton and Red engage in a rather epic fist fight, one of Lonegan’s young assistants suggests they should step in and stop the fight.

“Oh, we should,” Lonegan agrees, but he does nothing because he knows the whole town has been longing for the battle and is enjoying the spectacle. (Arguably, that’s a better reaction than the example set by the Bishop and Rev. Playfair, who make a bet on the fight.)

There are good things to be said about the clergy in the film. Lonergan has served the town faithfully. He notes that he baptized both Sean and Mary Kate as infants in the same chapel where he married them.

Both Lonergan and Playfair serve as counselors in the film. Mary Kate interrupts Father Lonergan’s fishing to ask for marital advice (though the Father doesn’t actually stop fishing to talk to her). On her request, they speak in Irish Gaelic, presumably because she feels most comfortable in that language. I noticed, though, that he never refers to Scripture or even the teaching of the church -- but neither does Playfair when Sean comes to him for marital advice. (Sean goes to Playfair partly because he’s the only one in the town who knows Sean’s history as a boxer. The Reverend is a fan of sports and games, having been a boxer himself and a devotee of tiddlywinks.)

And though Red Danaher acts in ways that the entire community recognizes as harmful to his sister, the priest never confronts him.

On the other hand, the priest joins the men in the tavern for drinks and seems open to fishing with them. There is something to be said for that kind of sociability. Father Lonergan also provides the film’s narration, but because of their decisions to conform rather than be holy, we’re knocking off a Steeple and giving the clergy of this film a Three Steeple rating.

Christmas Movies Month: 3 Godfathers

3 Godfathers (1948)
So many people don’t understand “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Radio stations play versions by everyone from Bing Crosby to Reliant K to Bob and Doug McKenzie. Something that many people don’t realize is that the first day of Christmas (Partridge & Pear Tree Day) is December 25th, and Christmas goes for the next twelve days, into the new year. The twelfth day (January 6th) is Epiphany, which focuses on the story of the Wise Men visiting young Jesus.

The story of the Magi provides the inspiration for a 1948 Western, 3 Godfathers. It’s the story of three bank robbers who take custody of a baby boy. There’s no clergy in the film and no formal church, but there’s much more Bible than you’d expect to find in your average John Ford directed, John Wayne starring film.

Another unusual thing about the film is that the Duke plays a bad guy in the film. Wayne plays Robert Hightower, a cattle rustler who decides to go into bank robbing with the help of two friends, Pedro (Pedro Armendariz), and William the Abilene Kid (Harry Carey, Jr.). They’re Texans who venture to the town of Welcome, Arizona, to commit their crime. They meet a nice guy, Perley “Buck” Sweet (Ward Bond), who welcomes them to town. Turns out he’s the town’s sheriff.

They rob the bank, but during their escape the Kid is shot (along with their canteen of water). If that wasn’t bad enough, they lose their horses in a desert sand storm. They search for a water hole and instead come across a stranded woman who’s in labor. She’s Perley’s niece, whose bumbling husband got himself killed.The robbers help deliver the child, and she names the baby after them: Robert William Pedro. She dies, but not before extracting a promise from the men to care for her baby. “I want all of you to be my baby’s godfathers. You will be, won’t you?” Along with the baby, William, the Kid, takes the woman’s Bible.

The Kid comes across a biblical passage about journeying to Jerusalem and is convinced he’s found a sign they should go to the Arizona town of New Jerusalem. When he sees a bright star in the sky, he’s convinced it is directing them, just as the Magi were directed by a star. He later finds encouragement from Psalm 137, looking for rescue from this strange land.

Things don’t go well for Pedro and the Kid, and eventually Robert is wandering the desert alone with the baby and the Bible. He had scoffed at the Kid’s reverence for the Bible, but in desperation he turns to it and finds a passage of God’s provision of a colt and donkey from Matthew 21. Miraculously, those very animals appear, guiding Robert to civilization.

Robert turns himself in, hoping to provide for the child. He is given a lenient sentence, and the town wishes him well as they send him off to prison at the train station. The crowd sings “Bringing in the Sheaves” and “Shall We Gather at the River?”, conducting a little church service by the rails.

Did I mention the whole film takes place at Christmas time, and Robert brings the child, Perley’s great nephew, into town on Christmas Day? That makes this a most appropriate film to watch on Christmas Day -- or Epiphany.

On the Small Screen in Utah

If you are a guy of a certain age there were a few films that everyone quoted, such as The Blues Brothers and Animal House. And a number of the other films that were watched again and again were films starring Chevy Chase, including Vacations I & III (but not II), The Three Amigos, and, most quoted of all, Caddyshack. Then his career crashed, and his films became utterly unwatchable, perhaps reaching the nadir with The Karate Dog. But before the great downswing, he made 1985’s Fletch.

Fletch was based on a novel in a popular mystery series by Gregory McDonald. The screenplay was written by Andrew Bergman (The In-Laws) and directed by Michael Ritchie (The Bad News Bears). Chase’s Fletch, a reporter for an unspecified Los Angeles paper, is working on a story about the drug trade on a Southern California beach. But the bad guy has a connection to Utah.

Fletch follows the baddie, Alan Stanwyk -- played by Tim Matheson (Animal House) -- to Provo. He asks someone whether Stanwyk is a Mormon and is told, “I don’t think he does a lot of singing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.”

When Fletch learns about Stanwyk’s second wife, he says, “That’s illegal, even in Utah.” So there’s not a lot of Utah in the film, but that which is there is important. (There was filming in Utah, but Ogden plays the part of Provo.)

Utah also has a very memorable cameo at the beginning of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). River Phoenix plays young Indy in a chase, via horse and train, through Arches National Park in Moab where the audience learns how the hero got his whip, his hat, and a scar. There are much less interesting races via automobiles in Need for Speed (2014), based on the popular video game. Aaron Paul races a Shelby Mustang through Moab and the Bonneville Salt Flats. A better car chase film is Vanishing Point (1971), an existential thriller with Barry Newman speeding a Chrysler Imperial through Cisco and Thompson Springs.

Utah has provided locations for many Westerns, most famously those directed by John Ford. In two of the greatest Westerns ever made, Stagecoach (1939) and The Searchers (1956), Ford prominently featured both John Wayne and Monument Valley. Warlock might sound like a horror film, but it was another Western featuring Henry Fonda and Richard Widmark and Arches National Park.

Carnival of Souls (1962) was a horror film, a low budget one, that featured the Great Salt Lake and other Utah landmarks made quite sinister by means of its odd black and white photography. It has been featured before in Movie Churches as its main character is a church organist.

A quite different film set and filmed in Salt Lake City is Chilly Scenes of Winter (the original title in 1979 was Head Over Heels), a romantic comedy starring John Heard and Mary Beth Hurt. The original theatrical release had a happy ending, but later releases ended on a more melancholy note, like the novel the film was based upon.

A film based on a grim true story is 2010’s 127 Hours about a canyoneer who became trapped in a climbing accident near Moab. He was forced to amputate his own arm (real life spoilers), the film was nominated for Best Picture, director Danny Boyle was nominated for his writing, and James Franco was nominated for his performance as Aron Ralston.

Another true story that’s more famous locally, is that of the original Mormon pioneers who settled the state. In 1940, 20th Century Fox featured Dean Jagger as the title character in Brigham Young, though the real stars were Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell as young lovers following their leader from Illinois through Nebraska to the Great Basin of Utah. (Unusual for a studio at the time, there was location shooting including in Kanab, Utah.)

On the Small Screen in North Dakota

From what I could find, there are a dozen films set in North Dakota; just three of those were actually filmed in the state.  Fortunately, one of those three is the film the film we watched. It’s also the one film people are likely to have heard of, the Coen brothers’ Fargo. Much of the film takes place in Minnesota, but the title tips the film into North Dakota territory.

The film tells the “true” story of a botched kidnapping that leads to murder. There are many seedy characters in the film, from the sleazy car salesman to the bubble headed prostitutes to the killers themselves. But one delightful character reminds the audience that there is good in the world: Frances McDormand’s Oscar winning role of Marge Gunderson, an extremely pregnant police officer who handles the case.

The film also won Ethan and Joel Coen an Academy Award for best screenplay for dialog such as Marge’s lecture to a killer on the sordid nature of his crime: “And for what? For a little bit of money? There’s more to life than a little money, you know. Don’tcha know that? And here ya are, and it’s a beautiful day. Well, I just don’t understand it.”

There is no church or clergy in the film, but Marge and her husband affirm the presence of grace in the world.

Most North Dakota films weren’t filmed in the state. For example, 1932’s The Purchase Price, in which Barbara Stanwyck plays a torch singer who becomes the mail order bride of a North Dakota farmer, was filmed on a California studio.

Also filmed in California were two films starring John Wayne that are set in North Dakota. 1940’s Three Faces West was a contemporary film about Viennese refugees from the Third Reich who come to North Dakota and are aided by the Duke.  The other, Dakota (1945), is a Western where Wayne’s wife wants to live in Fargo while Wayne’s character wants to go to California (of course, the Duke secretly has the last laugh, because they are actually in California the whole time).

Other Westerns set in North Dakota were also filmed in different places. 1956’s 7th Cavalry, a Western about the aftermath of Custer’s defeat (starring Randolph Scott) was filmed in Mexico. And 1952’s Bugles in the Afternoon, another Custer Western set at Fort Lincoln (this one starring Ray Milland), was filmed in Utah.

Surprisingly, only one major theatrical feature has been made about the Lewis and Clark Expedition: 1955’s The Far Horizons. Two of the three major characters were very well cast, Fred MacMurray as Captain Meriwether Lewis and Charlton Heston as Lieutenant William Clark. And there is one awful piece of old Hollywood casting, the Native American heroine, Sacagawea, was played by Donna Reed. No filming in North Dakota; the film was made in Wyoming and California.  

A film set in a variety of states which I’ve been tempted to include in previous posts is Disney’s 1994 adventure film, Iron Will. It’s the story of a young man who tries to save his family’s North Dakota farm by participating in a dog sled race from Winnipeg, Canada, to Saint Paul, Minnesota. Shooting took place in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and even Montana, but not South Dakota.

Two horror films have been set in North Dakota. 1993’s Leprechaun, starring a pre-Friends Jennifer Aniston, is about a little green man who will kill to get his gold back. It was actually filmed in California. And 2007’s The Messengers, starring Kristen Stewart, about an evil force that brings murder and mayhem to a small sunflower farm, was actually filmed in Canada.

1978’s Northern Lights, an independant film about the Nonpartisan League, a Populist movement founded in North Dakota in the early 1900’s, won big at the Cannes Film Festival and has been widely forgotten ever since. But it was filmed entirely in North Dakota. And 2001’s Wooly Boys, a Western starring Peter Fonda and Kris Kristofferson, is widely forgotten elsewhere but remembered fondly within the state -- probably because so many people knew someone who was an extra in the film.