Members of the BPA chapter of the Elmer Buehler Fan Club, Libby Burke in the center.

This 2 DVD set was made for you and me!

The Friday Film Festival held by Bonneville Power Administration in March 2013 was so successful the curator of the series, research librarian Libby Burke, decided to release the films on DVD. She selected six, spanning 1939 to 1954. The first, Hydro (1939) was directed by Gunther V. Fritsch, (you know, the guy who went on to direct The Curse of the Cat People  in 1945). The second, The Columbia (1949), features songs written for it by Woody Guthrie. The third,  Highline (1950) focuses on long distance transmission of electricity. All three were produced by Stephen B. Kahn.

Stephen B. Kahn boasted that he discovered Woody Guthrie. He made the hire, at the recommendation of Alan Lomax, before Woody was famous. It was 1941. Kahn hired Woody to come to Portland for one month to write songs. He was assigned a driver, BPA employee Elmer Buehler, and with Woody in the back seat strumming his guitar, Elmer drove up and down the “Power Stream” as Stephen Kahn liked to call the mighty Columbia River. Woody wrote a song a day during that month. He was paid $266.

One song was Pastures of Plenty. Another was Roll On, Columbia. Both were first recorded here in Portland, at the BPA office.

During the McCarthy era, when political winds had changed, Elmer Buehler, the patron saint of Oregon film archivists, was ordered to destroy all BPA’s prints of  Hydro and The Columbia. He refused to do it, and sequestered one print of each in his basement.

Elmer Buehler (1911 – 2010)

I propose we hold an annual Elmer Buehler Film Festival of rescued films in his honor. In the meantime, you can hear Woody Guthrie perform the songs he wrote in the back seat of Elmer’s car on The Columbia, the second film on the first DVD.

The second DVD has Power Builds Ships (1942), showcasing PNW ship building as part of the war effort. 25,000 Volts Under The Sea (1951) documents the rural electrification of the San Juan Islands. Look To The River (1954), about the construction of the McNary Dam and the Hungry Horse Dam, features a score by Ernest Gold, who hadn’t yet won his Oscar.

Taken together, the series forms a composite portrait of the river, a forceful, magnetic, photogenic presence, and of the people who spent their lives attempting to tame it. Libby Burke’s introductions provide an inside track on the personalities behind the films. These films were made during a comparatively fallow period, when it comes to indigenous Oregon filmmaking, so the interface between BPA and Hollywood is especially fascinating.

From the BPA website:

And the BPA Library is offering the newly released set to the general public, particularly to teachers, schools, libraries, Northwest electric utilities and other public institutions. To receive a copy, contact BPA’s Public Information Center at the agency’s headquarters in Portland at 503-230-4636 (toll-free: 800-622-4520) or pic@bpa.gov. In addition, all six films are available to view and share on BPA’s YouTube channel.

I hereby claim all the films included in the  BPA Film Collection: Volume One, 1939 – 1954, as Oregon films, based on the location of the producer, Bonneville Power Administration, in Portland.

Ralph Wright’s Perri (1957) won the Golden Bear at the  1958 Berlin International Film Festival, making Ralph Wright Oregon’s first internationally recognized filmmaker.

Imports:

Bend Of the River 1952 (Anthony Mann, Jimmy Stewart) Shot on Mt. Hood.

The Lusty Men 1952 (Nicholas Ray, Robert Mitchum) Scenes shot in Pendleton.

Drum Beat 1954 (Alan Ladd, Charles Bronson) Scenes shot in Southern Oregon.

Indian Fighter 1955 (Andre de Toth, Kirk Douglas) Shot in Central Oregon.

Tonka 1958 (Sal Mineo) Shot in Central Oregon.

Day Of The Outlaw 1959 (Andre de Toth, Burl Ives) Shot in Central Oregon.

Exports:

There’s No Business Like Show Business 1954 (singer Johnnie Ray)

Seven Brides For Seven Brothers 1954 (singer Jane Powell)

Oklahoma! 1955 (dancer Gene Nelson)

The Incredible Shrinking Man 1957 (cinematographer Ellis Carter)

What’s Opera, Doc? 1957 (voice artist Mel Blanc) one of many, many WB cartoons voiced by Blanc in this decade

Perri 1957 (writer-director Ralph Wright)

Venice: Theme and Variations 1957 (writer-director James Ivory)

The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad 1958 (writer Ken Kolb)

Sleeping Beauty 1959 (composer George Bruns)

Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure 1959 (actor Gordon Scott)

That’s not all!

Portland served as setting and inspiration for:

Portland Expose 1957 (Harold D. Schuster)

The Day Called X 1957 (Glenn Ford, The People of Portland)

Strange but true: Kenneth Kolb, born Portland, Oregon in 1926, wrote the screenplay for Ray “Harry” Harryhousen’s masterpiece, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, a film cited by Henry Selick (and many, many others) as inspiring him to enter the field of stop motion animation.

Kolb’s other movie credit: he wrote the novel Getting Straight, which was adapted for the big screen in 1970.

I hereby claim The 7th Voyage of Sinbad as an Oregon film on the basis of the contribution made by Oregon born and raised screenwriter Ken Kolb.

Laika, the first mammal to travel to outer space, setting off on Nov. 3, 1957.

Under the old definition of Oregon film, in 1957:

Harold Schuster made Portland Expose.

The People of Portland starred in The Day Called X.

Under the new definition of Oregon film, in 1957:

At Warner Bros., Mel Blanc voiced What’s Opera, Doc?

At Disney, Ralph Wright co-wrote and co-directed Perri.

At Universal, DP Ellis Carter shot The Incredible Shrinking Man.

In New York, Harry Smith began making Heaven and Earth Magic.

At USC, film student James Ivory finished Venice: Theme and Variations.

In Paris, James Blue was halfway through film school at L’IDHEC.

Johnnie Ray was one of the first to make me really open my ears. That was like 2 or 3 years before Elvis. -Rolling Stone Bill Wyman

Johnnie Ray was born in Dallas, Oregon in 1927.  He wrote The Little White Cloud That Cried, his first hit, while a teenager in Oregon. In December 1951, after serving an apprenticeship in a Detroit night club, he recorded that song for Okeh Records in New York. It went to the top of the charts.

Click here to view the embedded video.

From fansite  www.johnnieray.com: The executives at Capitol Records heard a Johnnie Ray demo record and thought the vocals were by a black female blues artist. Johnnie was thought at first by the radio listening audience to be a black blues singer, but soon it was revealed that he was a tall, thin, very fair complected, handsome boyish looking man of 24. Johnnie’s first Okeh release was a quick Detroit recording of “Whiskey & Gin”, a stomping R&B number, and ”Tell The Lady I said Goodbye”, a torchy ballad, both recorded May 29th, 1951, possibly in a radio station, with Maurice King and the Wolverines.

Ray skyrocketed to the top despite multiple challenges. A childhood accident left him deaf in one ear. He came out in public as a deaf person by wearing his hearing aid on stage but was unable, due to the times in which he lived, to come out as a gay man. He battled alcoholism.

Polite and soft spoken in person, on stage Ray was a physically uninhibited performer who prowled the stage, manhandled the microphone, threw himself on the floor, and attacked the piano as Jimi Hendrix would later attack his guitar.

A more sedate version of Ray’s stage persona is seen in There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954). His singing provides the only honest moments in that enormous, greedy, gaudy turkey.