Hollywood on the Rio Grande

ONE FOR THE MONEY, TWO FOR THE SHOW

- Introduction
- Hooked Forever
- Innocent in the Velvet Jungle
- The Commission of Doubt or
  What the Hell do we do Next
- Stinky Flies in the Gourmet Soup
- One for the Money, Two for the Show
- The Wrap Without Bow Knots The first film made in New Mexico, 1898, was Indian Day School. It was shot south of Albuquerque at the Isleta Pueblo by the Edison Company. From 1911 through 1930 there were 30 films shot in New Mexico. Most of them were done at Silver City or Las Vegas. Tom Mix was involved in more than 20 of these.

Billy the Kid, directed by King Vidor, led off the 1930s. It starred Johnny Mack Brown and Wallace Beery. Over 100 Western films were shot through the decades - far too many to list in this space. Among the special Westerns filmed in New Mexico was Cowboy, directed by Delmar Daves in 1958 (he loved New Mexico's locations) starring Glenn Ford and Jack Lemmon. In 1965 another big Western, The Hallelujah Trail, starring Burt Lancaster, Brian Keith and other big names, was filmed in Gallup. Key parts of Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid were done at Chama and Taos. Las Cruces and White Sands saw action in Clint Eastwood's Hang 'Em High.

The year 1970 saw 11 films, most major, shot in New Mexico. Two of these: The Cheyenne Social Club - James Stewart and Henry Fonda - and Chisum - John Wayne and Ben Johnson - were filmed at the Eaves Ranch. The movie bonanza continued in 1971. More than a dozen films were done here that year. Included among them was Peter Fonda's underrated The Hired Hand. The number increased to 14 in 1972. From 1973 till the end of the decade, 51 films were shot all over New Mexico. A few were for television dramas and a couple were pilots for TV series.

There were some pretty good Westerns. Bite The Bullet with Gene Hackman, James Coburn, et al; My Name Is Nobody - Henry Fonda and Terence Hill; Showdown - Dean Martin and Rock Hudson, directed by George Stevens; and Casey's Shadow (highly underrated) with Walter Matthau directed by Martin Ritt. Then there were a couple of noble failures: Sam Peckinpah's truck driver Western Convoy and Butch and Sundance: The Early Days with Tom Berenger and Brian Dennehy.

Of the 51 movies during that time - 1973 to 1980 - 17 were Westerns. Eight of the Westerns were made at Eaves Ranch - as well as several non-Westerns. So the dream and dedication of J.W. and several other people who worked for that first "street" had paid off big for the ranch and the state, without a doubt.

The 1980s continued with the usual ups and downs. The reason for the drop from the early boom years was simple. The New Mexico Film Commission's highly successful techniques were being copied by nearly every state in the Union. Most of them spent more - often five to six times more - on promotion.

One of the standout Westerns made in New Mexico in the 1980s was The Ballad Of Gregorio Cortez, directed by Robert M. Young and starring Edward James Olmos and James Gammon. A few others that made noise were Silverado, Young Guns and parts of the classic Lonesome Dove miniseries.

According to filmographer Casey St. Charnez, from 1980 through 1997 there were 121 films shot in New Mexico. The Hi Lo Country, executive produced by Martin Scorsese and directed by Stephen Frears, was one of the last Westerns of the century in New Mexico cinema. It is a great irony that Hi Lo's genesis was way back in 1960 when I received the call from Sam Peckinpah.

When line producer Rudd Simmons first arrived here to look at locations in March of 1996, a terrible drought gripped the real Hi Lo country. The two of us drove more than 2,000 miles on dirt, corrugated roads looking and getting the feel. The Brits came, director Frears, Working Title Films head Tim Bevans (Dead Man Walking, Fargo and many others), Barbara Da Fina, representing producer Scorsese, and screenwriter Walon Green. Helped by chairperson Linda Hutchison's associates, Kelly Cosandaey and J.B. Smith, members of New Mexico Film Office, Rudd and I took them on a gut-chugging ride over about a fourth of the miles of our first trip.

We had been in contract negotiations for more than a year. For just a moment I felt like a number one, first-class dunce. I was running around here without a signed contract or a single cent in payment. As usual in my brilliance, everyone else but me was being paid. Everyone. That shows both stupidity and blind faith. It worked. They made the picture - a New Mexico book, made in New Mexico, employing hundreds of New Mexicans in the cast, crew and extras. Again careers were started, others advanced. After 38 years of trying, it felt pretty damn good.