PERFORMING ARTS / Film & Video / General

For more than thirty years, William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody entertained audiences across the United States and Europe with his Wild West show. Scores of books have been written about Cody’s fabled career as a showman, but his involvement in the film industry—following the dissolution of his traveling show—is less well known. In Buffalo Bill on the Silver Screen, Sandra K. Sagala chronicles the fascinating story of Cody’s venture into filmmaking during the early cinema period.

When Thomas Edison wanted to capture western magic on film in 1904, where did he send his crew? To Oklahoma's 101 Ranch near Ponca City. And when Francis Ford Coppola readied young actors Tom Cruise and Matt Dillon to portray teen class strife in the 1983 movie The Outsiders, he took cast and crew to Tulsa, the setting of S. E. Hinton's acclaimed novel. From Edison to Coppola and beyond, Oklahoma has served as both backdrop and home base for cinematic productions. Shot in Oklahoma explores the variety, spunk, and ingenuity of movie-making in the Sooner State over more than a century.