EXCLUSIVE | 'When Hollywood Came to Utah' author James V D'Arc reveals how Kevin Costner's big decision will cement state's iconic status
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: James V. D'Arc, an acclaimed author celebrated for his profound knowledge of cinema, found his calling in capturing the compelling story of Utah's vibrant film industry. With a remarkable career spanning over four decades as curator of the BYU Motion Picture Archive, D'Arc's expertise and dedication have made him a revered authority in the field.
His latest book, 'When Hollywood Came to Utah' Centennial Edition celebrates 100 years of Hollywood and indigenous filmmaking in Utah. 'When Hollywood Came to Utah' stands as a testament to the enduring legacy of the state's cinematic terrain, chronicling over a century of indelible contributions to the silver screen.
With a keen eye for detail and a wealth of insider knowledge, D'Arc in his book spills the beans on Hollywood's most iconic productions, shedding light on the interactions between locals and luminaries that have shaped Utah's cinematic heritage.
D'Arc's latest edition, featuring a new foreword from actor Kevin Costner, promises to grab eyeballs with its vivid portrayal of Hollywood's enduring love affair with the Beehive State.
Through richly illustrated pages and updated text, D'Arc takes readers on a journey through time, exploring the dramatic, comedic, and sometimes harrowing story of Utah's cinematic growth.
Now, in an exclusive interview with MEAWW, D'Arc gets candid about why Utah rocks as a movie-making destination! Get ready for some behind-the-scenes information, and of course, a bucket list of must-visit spots for all you movie buffs waiting to explore Utah.
Excerpts from the interview
Utah's landscape is magical and cinematically transformative, but it takes more than just stunning scenery to keep Hollywood happy. What does a state need to ensure and deliver to make it a viable destination for filmmaking?
The landscape is certainly the allure of a filming location, especially where the varied scenery in Utah, with five national parks and numerous state parks, is in play. However, as the history of moviemaking in Utah is concerned, the quality of the people and the availability of a skilled resident talent crew are vital to the successful experience for an out-of-state production company.
In the early days, when major studios traveled from Hollywood to Kanab, Utah, they found this remote southern Utah town of 1,300 population more than adequate to answer their needs.
Everyone pitched in to assist Twentieth Century Fox arrived in the Fall of 1940 to make the big-budgeted Technicolor feature Western Union, starring the legendary Randolph Scott, Robert Young, and Dean Jagger in a tale, taken from a Zane Grey novel, about the building of the transcontinental telegraph wire.
Nearly the entire town was hired as extras, security guards, wranglers, and heavy machinery operators to grade roads to remote filming locations. Whit Parry accommodated the cast and crew at his Parry Lodge, and catered the meals to the film's various outdoor locations.
Parry was also the principal contact man with the studios and regularly made trips to Fox, Paramount, Warner Brothers, Universal, RKO, and United Artists executives in the offseason to drum up additional business for the following year.
Now, all of this is coordinated with the Utah Film Commission, founded in 1974. Resident Utah professionals in all needed trades, from cast to wardrobe to all skilled behind-the-camera talent can be found. I maintain that, from my 33 years of research for the book, Utah taught the rest of the states the importance of currying Hollywood moviemaking and just how to attract them. After all, beginning with the entrepreneurial trio of Chauncey, Gronway, and Parry in the early 1920s, Utah had been actively promoting its availability to movie companies more aggressively than any of the 50 states.
Utah has been the backdrop for films ostensibly set all over the world, is there a unique quality the state possesses that makes it so flexible with its geography?
Perhaps no better example of the universality of Utah's locations can be displayed than in the hit CBS series 'Touched by An Angel', which was filmed throughout the state for a total of nine seasons, from 1994 through 2003.
In its 211 episodes, the range of locales that were convincingly represented by Utah locations include the Sahara Desert, Africa, Illinois, Washington, DC, Bejing, The Holy Land in the Middle East, other planets in outer space, Egypt, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Scotland, Timbuktu, and various other states in the US.
One might suspect that Utah has something of an identity crisis, given the amazing versatility of its scenery. However, to Utah, that's hardly a "crisis." Rather, Utah's diverse climes and talent pool has been an opportunity for production companies that have made more than 1,240 feature films, television movies, and series in the state since 1913. This figure does not include the individual television series episodes, bringing the total number of productions filmed in Utah locations to over 2,000.
In your book 'When Hollywood Came to Utah' there are several instances where locals have worked and prospered on Hollywood sets — some for decades. How important is the employment of locals on films set in their home state and is there enough of this being done today?
In attracting filmmakers to Utah, the economics are critical. The more a company is relieved of paying transportation, lodging, and per diems for talent brought in on productions, the more attractive a location becomes.
With the intense nationwide competition for moviemaking revenue, the total package must be in place to make movie, cable, and streaming productions viable. The recent announcement of Kevin Costner's commitment to construct a sprawling studio facility in St George attests to Utah's competitiveness in this regard.
Georgia seems to have profited immensely from a marketing blast that put it 'front and center' for filmmaking in the US (most notably via 'The Walking Dead' franchise). Has Utah maximized the potential of marketing (especially in the digital age) to make it Hollywood's must-film destination, and do you see scope for improvement?
I suspect that no state has fully "maximized" its marketing capabilities to attract filmmaking.
However, as stated above, director-actor-producer Kevin Costner's announcement of his studio complex in St George goes a long way to being yet another major attraction for filmmakers to pick Utah for both exterior and interior facilities for production. With the Utah Film Studios in Park City and soon the Costner studio in St. George, Utah is preeminently competitive.
With Green Screen technology and CGI becoming ever more ubiquitous, do you fear on-site filming may soon be a thing of the past?
With the development of new technologies, especially with AI, both challenges and opportunities are presented simultaneously to any state vying for film production. However, CGI, as magical as it is on the screen, also has its limits, depending on the kind of movie to be made.
At the end of the day, there is nothing quite like the real setting.
What would be your 5 must-see destinations in Utah for film buffs traveling to the state?
Scenic Byway of Highway 128:
The highway that parallels the Colorado River, just north of the town of Moab, is where the great John Ford filmed 'Wagon Master' and 'Rio Grande' in 1950, the latter title starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara.
Coming full circle, it is also a major location for Kevin Costner's four-feature-film epic, 'Horizon: An American Saga', which premiers its first feature in theaters nationwide on June 28.
Zion National Park/Grafton Ghost Town:
Zion National Park/Grafton ghost town, where dozens of motion pictures and television programs have been filmed since 1924.
Among them, 'In Old Arizona' (1929), the first all-talking Western movie; 'Ramrod' (1947), a film noir western starring 'Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake' (and was Utah's Centennial movie during its gala centennial celebration of the state's founding in 1847); the iconic 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' (1969); 'The Car' (1997), a horror thriller about a devil-possessed Lincoln Mark III that seeks its prey on Utah's Hwy 9 amidst the park's towering natural wonders, and soon became a popular cult film.
Dead Horse Point State Park/Canyonlands National Park/Arches National Park:
Here you can find the sites of 'Thelma & Louise' (1991), 'The Greatest Story Ever Told' (1965), and 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade' (1989).
Monument Valley (Utah-Arizona border):
The iconic sandstone pillars of this unique site were, for many years, the exclusive filming site of multiple Academy Award-winning director John Ford, who made seven internationally-revered features there, many starring John Wayne.
Kanab/Kane County:
This region was the epicenter of moviemaking in Utah, from the early 1930s to the early 1970s, the site of 100 feature films (all three vintage 'Flicka' movies in the 1940s, 'Planet of the Apes', 'The Outlaw Josey Wales', and even 'The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again') and dozens of television series episodes, including 'The Lone Ranger', 'Have Gun Will Travel', 'Gunsmoke', 'The Million Dollar Man)'.