EDMOND —
“The Legacy of a Camera Toting Huckster,” was the headline for an article that appeared in a recent edition of the Sunday New York Times. That article dealt with Melton Barker, a Texas filmmaker who spent decades traveling through several states, including Oklahoma, where he would make a movie titled “The Kidnappers’ Foil” that involved the kidnapping of a young girl and her subsequent rescue by a group of young children. It ended with the children singing and dancing. The film was about 20 minutes in length.
The article detailed how Barker would make a deal with a local theater to show the movie prior to his arrival, and also would place an advertisement in a local paper that would say that a movie would be made and later shown there, and for a small fee parents could have their children be in the film. The Texas Archive of the Moving Image website contains a page devoted to Barker, which documents how from the 1930s until his death in 1977 he was on the road making his films in Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, North Carolina and South Carolina among other states. He also operated several restaurants and theaters during times when he was not traveling.
While Barker made the film hundreds of times, fewer than 20 versions have been found. The filmmaker would arrive with a small crew hat included a cameraman, two adult actors and a sound man, and parents were happy to pay several dollars to have their children appear in a movie that would be shown locally. The Texas Archive website includes a map that shows the places where Barker was known to have made movies, and they include the Oklahoma communities of Oklahoma City, Ada, Anadarko, Guthrie and Shawnee.
The film he made in Shawnee was discovered several years ago when the downtown Hornbeck Theater in that town was being renovated, and is now featured on the Oklahoma Historical Center’s website that details the making of movies in the state. In 2012 the Library of Congress added “The Kidnapper’s Foil” to its list of culturally and historically significant American movies.
University of Texas Film Historian Caroline Frick has done a considerable amount of research on Barker, and she has concluded that he was much more than a huckster armed with a camera. In an article that appeared in “The Moving Image,” which is published by the University of Minnesota Press, titled “Jackrabbit Genius Melton Barker, Itinerant Films and Creating Locality,” Frick describes how Barker was part of a tradition of itinerant filmmaking that was as old as the film industry itself but it has not received the attention of film historians that it deserves. She credits Barker and other traveling movie makers for bringing the magic of the film-making process to communities far from Hollywood. She also notes how their films captured the speech patterns of the places where they were made and included genuine locales that were not part of films made in Hollywood.
The film historian details that the showing of those movies in places where they were made and their presence on the Internet has resulted in local efforts to preserve and restore some of the structures that were featured in them. And the Internet site devoted to Barker includes emails from many people who were in his movies who write of the thrill of seeing themselves in a movie in a theater in their hometown. Frick believes that many versions of “The Kidnapper’s Foil” may be located in unused theaters and other places where films were stored and are waiting to be found.
WILLIAM F. O’BRIEN is an Oklahoma City attorney.
Opinion
Itinerant moviemaker captures local history
- Opinion
-
-
Americans deserve the truth on Benghazi
Lately, the media has been consumed by the controversies surrounding the White House. Among these controversies is the horrific terrorist attack on the United States’ diplomatic compound in Benghazi that took place Sept. 11, 2012. As more people come forward with additional information regarding the attack on the consulate, many Americans, including myself, are still asking for the truth.
The Obama Administration and the State Department have been less than forthcoming with key information on Benghazi and recent information points toward a major cover-up. -
Seizure of AP phone records insult to independent press
Distrust of government secrecy has been elevated to an exceptional level with the disclosure the Justice Department covertly examined two months of Associated Press phone records to determine who leaked details to the AP about a foiled terrorist plot.
-
HEY HINK: Some people just are not cut out for command
Recent headlines cause me to remember an incident that occurred on an army base some years ago. Warning here: I’m taking some liberties with names and details, but the basic outline of events is accurate.
A certain company commander, let’s call him Captain Duntz, had command of a motor pool on a large army base in the continental U.S. -
We’ve become our own worst enemies
The past couple months have been marked by a seeming unprecedented number of man-made tragedies, as distinct from those caused by violent outbursts of the natural world, such as earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis.
You don’t want to dwell too long on the negative, but we do have to take notice of horrific human events and we owe it to ourselves to respond to them in some way. We don’t always agree on those responses, however, and that usually exacerbates the problem. -
Let’s reimburse higher ed for remediation costs
The good news: Oklahoma schools are teaching phonics. The bad news: It’s in college.
Students at Tulsa Community College, for example, can take a college English course called “Spelling and Phonics,” which “helps students master basic spelling literacy, principles of phonics and decoding skills.”
This sort of higher education brings to mind former Boston University president John Silber’s quip: “Higher than what?” -
AGAINST THE GRAIN: Department of Commerce highlights Main Street successes
The 24th annual Oklahoma Main Street Awards Banquet was at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum last week. Oklahoma Department of Commerce Secretary Dave Lopez addressed the gathering, and spoke of how the Commerce Department works with Main Street organizations throughout the state that are working to improve their downtown areas. Lopez pointed out that the partnership between his department and those local organizations has brought new life to those communities and that the attendees would see some of that revitalization in a video presentation. Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin also addressed the gathering, and said the Main Street program has resulted in more than $1 billion in investments in the state and more than 1 million volunteer hours in its 24 years of operation.
-
OUR VIEW: Be Edmond needs your help
BMX star and local legend Mat Hoffman knows what’s it like to fall from great heights and find yourself at one of the worst low points in life. He also knows how to climb back up and tackle life’s problems head on.
-
No Americans forgotten in Benghazi
More than eight months ago on Sept. 11, the nation was shaken by the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Claiming the lives of four innocent Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, that horrific night still demands further investigation before it can be laid to rest. Due to an uncooperative administration and State Department who attempted to downplay the terrorist attack just eight weeks before the presidential election, we still don’t know the truth.
-
Saying goodbye to the earmark
When a new legislator, I worked to learn some of the more hidden and less-than-transparent aspects in the way Oklahoma politicians spent our taxpayer dollars. This wasn’t easy as even some legislators are left in the dark regarding the mechanics of how the legislative budget process is abused to the benefit of the most powerful of politicians.
-
HEY HINK: Think like a gaur before deciding on gun debate
Have you ever heard of a gaur? It’s the largest living member of the bovine family. A large gaur bull can weigh more than a ton and a half. His body may be nearly 11 feet long and he may be more than 7 feet tall at the shoulder. This is a huge, enormously powerful animal that could, no doubt, do a terrific amount of work if it would ever allow itself to be hitched to a plow. But it won’t. Man has never been able to offer the gaur a deal that would persuade it to become domesticated.
- More Opinion Headlines
-
Americans deserve the truth on Benghazi
