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SOUTHERN UTAH — When people around the world think about the American west, there’s a good chance they picture Southern Utah. That’s thanks to the movies, according to film historian James D’Arc.
“It's incredible how the legacy of Utah movie locations defines the West,” said D’Arc, curator of the BYU Motion Picture Archive, the BYU Film Music Archive, the Arts and Communications Archive and author of “When Hollywood Came to Town: A History of Moviemaking in Utah.”
The story began in the early 1920’s in Cedar City, he said. Brothers Chauncey and Gronway Parry ran the transportation concession for what would become Zion National Park and promoted the area.
“Chauncy Parry, who was a pilot in World War I, flew his Curtiss JN-4 over Zion National Park, Grand Canyon, Cedar Breaks, Bryce Canyon, took pictures,” said D’Arc. “In the off-season he would take the train to Hollywood and shopped these pictures around the studios saying, ‘Look at the great scenery we have up here. Make movies here.’”
The first big star who did was movie cowboy Tom Mix, who shot his 1924 “Deadwood Coach” in Cedar City, Bryce and Zion National Parks. Utah, said D’Arc, “provided new real estate to show on the screen. In the nineteen teens and twenties when movies became a national habit, audiences, believe it or not, got tired of seeing the same old backgrounds in westerns.”
About 15 years later, Monument Valley caught the eye of director John Ford, who was looking for locations for his first western with sound, “Stagecoach.”
“Although those iconic buttes only show up in ninety seconds of the film, one percent of the film footage… that made Monument Valley iconic,” D’Arc said.
I'm telling you, there are parts of Utah that are not like anything else in the world.
–Robert Redford, actor
D’Arc said when Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev visited the States in 1959, he wanted to fly over Monument Valley, “because to him that was the American West.”
In the late 1960’s when the Utah movie business was slow, actor Robert Redford suggested director George Roy Hill cast Southern Utah in his new film about a couple of outlaws.
“I’m telling you, there are parts of Utah that are not like anything else in the world,” Redford recalled saying to Hill.
“Robert Redford, it's fair to say, was responsible for the renaissance of Hollywood movie making in Utah,” D’Arc said. He said Redford teamed up with Governor Cal Rampton and visited Hollywood to promote the state.
From “Planet of the Apes” to “The Greatest Story Ever Told” to “High School Musical,” Utah’s filmography is extensive. D’Arc has documented Utah’s role in more than 700 feature films.
Many of these, for filmgoers, have come to define what the West was, said D’Arc, “or maybe what they wanted the West to be.”
