To the Heartland, with Cameras

Movie crews pour cash into Midwest

From Hollywood, a boom town with a village psychology, film producers have long been roaming the world searching for unusual locations that will jolt the jaded eyes of moviegoers. Having dispatched camera crews from Abidjan to Zempoaltepec, movie moguls are now discovering an inviting area closer to home: the U.S. Midwest. In the view of film executives, America's heartland is "virgin territory" on the screen, unknown even to many Americans--not to mention foreign movie buffs. It also offers the stark authenticity that many current movies demand: steel mills, gritty factory towns, ghettos black and ethnic, as well as the lush estates of the better-heeled.

So Huron Productions chose Dubuque, Iowa, to film some scenes for F.I.S.T. (the Federation of Interstate Truckers), which is being distributed by United Artists. It stars Sylvester Stallone (Rocky) playing a warehouse worker who becomes one of the country's most powerful labor leaders. Dubuque has the ambience of an industrial town of the 1930s. Another production, The Betsy, about infighting in the auto industry, is, naturally, being shot in Detroit. Much footage for EMI Limited's The Deer Hunter, a blue-collar special starring Robert De Niro, was shot in a bowling alley in Struthers, Ohio, and a U.S. Steel plant in Cleveland. Bette Davis is starring in Harvest Home, a Universal Production for NBC being shot in Conneaut, Ohio.

The Midwest is showing its usual hospitality, as much for pecuniary reasons as politeness: a pot of money comes to town when a big-budget movie crew arrives. It is not uncommon for the movie company and crew to spend more than $1 million on lodging, food, props, local extras and other labor. That sum generates nearly four times as much spending power as it percolates through the local economy--and the hosts incur few offsetting expenses. Says Ray Gosnell, vice president for production management at 20th Century-Fox: "There is no need to build roads or schools for us as the case would be if a factory came into the state. We spend a substantial amount of money in a short period of time; then we are out of the way."

Midwestern state governments are wooing movie companies the way underdeveloped countries lay bait for multinational corporations. Illinois, Ohio and Kentucky have set up state film boards. They promote the advantages of movie production in their states through campaigns in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter, send emissaries to the studio heads, scout locations, ensure the cooperation of local police forces and other state agencies and act as general factotums when the glamorous people come to town.

One of the most aggressive states is Illinois. Its film board has attracted six major productions this year, including The Fury, a Fox $6 million spy thriller starring Kirk Douglas. Governor James Thompson lent a state helicopter to the crew to scout locations, waived permits to allow equipment to be hauled across state lines and persuaded the owners of a Lake Forest estate to allow filming in their home. When Director Robert Altman was filming A Wedding, for 20th Century-Fox distribution (the movie stars Mia Farrow and Geraldine Chaplin), Thompson declared a Robert Altman Week and held a big bash for the cast and crew at a Chicago disco. Which points up another advantage of attracting film makers: besides being good business, hanging out with movie people is a lot of fun.

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