Cheyenne

Jane Wyman came to Sedona in April 1946 to film Cheyenne; her husband, Ronald Reagan, stayed in L.A. and immersed himself in labor union politics. One year later, she was an Oscar winner, he was SAG president, Cheyenne was still unreleased - and their own union was on the anti-"Red" rocks.

Cheyenne was based on an original story written for the screen by novelist Paul I. Wellman (his book Broncho Apache was the source material of the 1954 film Apache starring Burt Lancaster, which was shot on location in Sedona). Emmet Lavery, then-president of the Screen Writers Guild, was given first crack at turning Wellman's story into a film script, but final credit went to Alan LeMay and Thames Williamson. LeMay wrote Randolph Scott's 1947 Sedona-filmed Gunfighters, but his lasting glory is a western story serialized between Nov. 6 and Dec. 4,

Jane Wyman reportedly lobbied her boss, Jack Warner, long and hard to drop her from Cheyenne. Although she was under contract to Warner Bros., she had hit the big time in 1945-'46 on the strength of two choice roles she was allowed to do for other studios. After more than a decade of mostly playing working girls, chorus girls and ditzy dames in a mix of high-profile "A" and lower-budget "B" movies, Wyman won wide acclaim in Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend, 1945's Oscar-winning Best Picture, for Paramount. She followed that with a picture for MGM, Clarence Brown's The Yearling, which was 1947's box-office champ and brought her the first of four Oscar nominations she'd receive in her career. Now back at Warner Bros. and hoping to build on her momentum, she was assigned to Cheyenne, and was none too pleased about it. She reportedly saw the western as a step backwards.

Despite Wyman's misgivings, she was among the 125 Warner Bros. employees who arrived in Flagstaff by chartered train to begin location work on April 28, 1946. About half of the Cheyenne company stayed in Flagstaff - Morgan and Wyman settled in at the Hotel Monte Vista - while the rest bunked in Oak Creek Canyon.

One small set was built in Sedona for Cheyenne, an abandoned stagecoach station at the foot of Bell Rock; all other location footage would be of red rock exteriors. Cinematographer Sid Hickox's camera captured beautiful views of Schnebly Hill, Courthouse Butte, The Nuns, Bell Rock, Schnebly Wall and Oak Creek.

Finished in the summer of '46 after additional exteriors were filmed at Warner Bros.' Calabasas, Calif., ranch, Cheyenne would not be seen until almost a year later, finally premiering on June 14, 1947, to mixed reviews. Film Daily praised it as "...a first rate western potage composed with effective ingredients done up in fine style." But Time magazine's critic grumbled the picture had "...a tedious kind of bedroom humor from which westerns used to be a refuge."

Text © 2006 Sedona Monthly

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

Sitemap

Internet Marketing by North Star Direct Marketing