American Anthem

By the 1980s, Hollywood rarely ventured to Sedona to shoot feature films. One curious exception was American Anthem, a tale of two hot-bodied aspiring Olympic gymnasts that found room only for fleeting glimpses of the distinctive local landscape, yet managed to squeeze in every MTV-inspired cliche of the decade's coming-of-age flicks.

Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon have some beautiful sights -- you just might never guess any of them were natural or outdoors after a viewing of American Anthem, one of the rare Hollywood films shot on location here in the 1980s. Rather, through its odd lens, we see a Sedona where local beauty is defined by aspiring gymnasts with perfect hair and teeth. Indeed, we can forgive American Anthem viewers for thinking Sedona is a town of buff young residents spawned from genetic engineering experiments financed by a modeling agency and the lycra industry -- but, unfortunately, not an acting school.

For Mitch Gaylord, who won a gold, a silver, and two bronze medals in gymnastics at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, his acting debut was a revelation. "I had no idea how much work went into making a film," the then-25-year-old said at the time, "and the best way I can describe it is that it's like a giant jigsaw puzzle they put together piece-by-piece -- a group effort, not just the actors and the director. It's like you're part of a team really creating something."

Janet Jones, then 23, had her first starring role as Julie in Anthem, after small roles in The Flamingo Kid (1984) and A Chorus Line (1985). As a senior in high school, Jones represented her hometown of St. Louis as a disco dancer competing on the TV show Dance Fever. She became a series regular, and in 1988 married hockey legend Wayne Gretzky.

Arizona locations were key to Magnoli's "vision": "It's important for me to bring a certain style to the picture and when I came to Arizona and saw the colors of the landscape it was obvious what that would be. If you use very definitive combinations of certain colors and images in an artistic fashion, something starts to happen in the audience. And it's that visceral reaction we're going for." He added that "the isolation, the majestic mountains and dramatic skies provided the perfect setting for the characters in this story."

Perfect -- except that, due to the MTV-style breakneck editing, the "majestic mountains" of Sedona are seen only in quick flashes. In fact, much local filming took place away from the rocks, in the surrounding Coconino National Forest, including the scenes that take place at Steve's treehouse (see, we told you he had some growing up to do!) and at his secret practice space (where Gaylord spends a lot of time spinning on a high bar mounted between two trees). One of the film's better set pieces, a wild ATV chase through the forest that climaxes with Steve's kid brother Mikey (9-year-old actor R.J. Williams) hanging from a high cliff, was shot on a road cut to the rim of Oak Creek Canyon especially for the film.

Text © 2006 Sedona Monthly

© 2006-2007 Bar225 Media Ltd. All rights reserved.

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