“Oklahoma!” A Classic Film Presentation at Cineplex Theatres on May 10!
Keep an eye open for Richard’s “Oklahoma!” primer in the Cineplex Pre-Show. The movie, which celebrates its 60th birthday this month will screen at select Cineplex theatres across the country on May 10, 2015. Click HERE for more information.
The most famous movie about the 20th-largest state in the United States wasn’t actually shot on home soil. The movie of Oklahoma! based on one of the most loved Broadway musicals of all time—the original 1943 stage production ran for 2,212 performances—was actually shot in Arizona and on Hollywood sound stages.
Director Fred Zinneman wanted to shoot the story of two young cowboys, both in love with the beautiful Laurey, in Oklahoma but the real state in 1955 was so heavily developed with farms and oil wells that few authentic locations could be found that resembled the undeveloped Oklahoma of the show’s rural turn of the twentieth century setting.
To maintain some sort of legitimacy the town of Nogales, Arizona was made an “honorary” part of the state of Oklahoma for the duration of the film shoot by order of the governor of Arizona… To learn more check out the Cineplex preshow!