Sooner Cinema: Oklahoma Goes to the Movies

Kudos to April Chou for her recent review of the book Sooner Cinema: Oklahoma Goes to the Movies edited by Larry A Van Meter. She reminded me that I loved this book and have been meaning to share it with you.

It is composed of 19 essays that discuss movies filmed in Oklahoma and movies about Oklahoma (many of them -- "Oklahoma," "Cimarron," "Far and Away," "Oklahoma Crude," and others - NOT filmed in Oklahoma). And it asks"What does Oklahoma mean?" Gray Frederickson has it right when he observed, "Finally, a book about the wonderful contributions this state and its people have made to the motion picture industry."

Published by Forty-Sixth Star Press, this is a fun read that will leave you wanting to re-read many of the essays, again. My favorite was Arch Longwill's "The Wrath of Grapes." He notes that "while few Oklahomans have seen the film The Grapes of Wrath, nearly everybody has an opinion on it" and mostly complaining about how Okies are depicted. I agree with Arch that we need to recognize the "noble qualities exhibited by the words and actions of the Okies in the film." We are tough, resilient, determined, hard working, honest, and fair. Today these qualities are why businesses are relocating in Oklahoma. They like those qualities and see them in our citizens. Go rent the film and watch it; then quit apologizing for the Joads. Okies rock. (My grandson proudly wears an"Okie" tatoo on his arm because he already knows there's no need to apologize!)

There are lots of other good essay in this book as well! You can read about some of them in this review in The Oklahoman and also this one in the Oklahoma Gazette.