Introduction
Celebrating its 50th anniversary in August, The Legend of Boggy Creek has been called many things. The world’s first pseudo-documentary. The beginning of “reality” entertainment. The ultimate drive-in movie and the scariest G-rated film ever made. There’s no denying the effect the film had on people. Made on a shoestring budget and released in 1972, it went on to gross millions at a time when absolutely no one gave it any chance at all.
The Legend of Boggy Creek is one of those rare films that derives its power precisely from the fact it’s so bare-bones. The low production values give it an air of authenticity you couldn’t recreate if you tried. On the surface, The Legend of Boggy Creek purports to tell the story of a large, hairy, man-like creature that purportedly haunts the swamps near the town of Fouke in southwest Arkansas. But it’s so much more than that.
Not a New Phenomena
Before we delve into the background story about the making of The Legend of Boggy Creek, we have to go back in time a little way. Back in the decades before this small but earnest production brought the incredible story of the Fouke Monster to the attention of the world.
Southwestern Arkansas seems like an ideal place for a large, unknown creature to hide. There are miles of low-lying swamps filled with alligators, poisonous snakes, beavers, and all sorts of other wildlife. The original settlers of the area were hunters and backwoodsmen who had little contact with the trappings of civilization. Due to the constantly fluctuating water levels and lack of access, to this day much of the area remains unexplored.
Way before The Legend of Boggy Creek even came out, sightings of a strange creature living in the nearby swampland were nothing new. Locals had been sharing stories about what they had seen since the 1940s. While most of these tall tales stayed within individual families or close friends, there were relatively few people in Fouke who hadn’t at least heard of the legend.
A Legend is Born
In May of 1971, the story finally broke big. That’s when the Arkansas Gazette printed the first in a series of articles about the experiences of two families who had rented a house on the outskirts of Fouke. The Ford and Taylor families claimed that on several occasions, a large hairy creature had tried to break into the residence and had even stuck its hand through an open window.
One family member had even stated that the mysterious creature had physically attacked him, which resulted in a trip to the nearby hospital in Texarkana. When police investigated, they found strange tracks, broken saplings, and parts of the house where the siding had been pulled off.
The Fouke Monster
Many people passed the whole thing off as a hoax. However, a couple of weeks later, three well-known people from the local community said they almost hit something which ran out in front of their car. They described it as being hair-covered, seven feet tall, three feet wide at the chest, and extremely fast.
Then, in June of 1971, a local farmer found tracks in his field that stretched for 150 yards. They belonged to something which walked on two legs, left footprints 13.5 inches long, had a 57-inch stride, and interestingly only possessed three toes. The local authorities took plaster casts and called in various wildlife experts to try and figure out who or what had left the prints.
Helped by a series of “matter-of-fact” articles which ran in all the local news outlets, the story began to pick up steam. More and more people started coming forward with their own sightings. Soon, everyone in that part of the country was keenly following the latest developments. It wasn’t long before the creature was given a name: “The Fouke Monster.”
“It Sure Will Make a Great Movie!”
One person who watched these developments with interest was an advertising man in nearby Texarkana named Charles B. Pierce. He made his living making low-budget film commercials for local businesses. One of his main clients was Ledwell & Son Enterprises, a small trucking company.
Fascinated by the stories of the Fouke Monster, Pierce soon began to explore the possibility of making a movie about the subject. Not exactly financially well-off, he approached his client and inquired to see if he would provide the necessary funding.
Deeply skeptical, Mr. Ledwell asked Pierce if he believed in the existence of the monster. To which Pierce replied:
“I don’t know if I believe it or not, but it sure will make a great movie!”
Something clicked, and spurred on by his ad man’s enthusiasm, the businessman agreed to bankroll the project to the tune of $100,000.
Hostile Reception
With the necessary funding in place, Pierce headed to Fouke to enlist the cooperation of the local town folk. To his profound disappointment, he found absolutely no one who was willing to help. Turned off by all the recent publicity, he discovered many of the residents were downright hostile to the very idea of making a film.
“They didn’t want to make a movie…They wanted to be left alone in fact.”
This predicament had left Pierce with a serious problem. His movie wasn’t even off the ground yet, and it was already beginning to look as if he wouldn’t have anything to put in front of the camera.
Getting Help
While shooting some spooky stock footage of the nearby swamps and bayous, Pierce made friends with a local resident named Julius “Smokey” Crabtree. The gentleman had lived in Fouke all his life and subsequently agreed to try and convince some of his neighbors to tell their own stories for the fledgling film.
Out of necessity, Pierce decided to film these individuals using a “documentary-style” approach which featured a combination of voice-overs and reenactments. But he still needed to find people willing to “act” these parts.
One day, Pierce headed down to the local gas station and just sat there. Whenever someone came in who looked like the right age and gender, he’d approach them with the age-old line:
“How would you like to be in a movie?”
While it took several days, Pierce was eventually able to line up over 60 people that were willing to participate. None of them used professional makeup, nor was their appearance altered in any way.
How to Make a Monster
A major item left open was that they still needed “the monster.” From the start, Pierce thought his film would be more effective if the audience never got a good look at the creature, and only saw it among the shadows, or at distance.
Since this “less is more” approach meshed perfectly with his available budget, Pierce ordered a gorilla suit from a costume house in Los Angeles. Then, he went to a local five and dime and bought every black-haired wig he could find. Cutting them into pieces, he sewed the hair onto the top of the gorilla’s head. Eventually, several people were called upon to wear this make-shift costume.
As the production on The Legend of Boggy Creek got underway, it was on extremely shaky legs. Completely staffed and acted by non-professionals, Pierce was forced to improvise as he went along. The director was also taking a huge risk by making an unproven feature-length docudrama using someone else’s money.
Something Special
Yet, as unlikely as it sounds, these factors combined to create something special. Even though the budget shortcomings are painfully obvious – with none of the participants giving anything close to a professional performance – the gritty, hand-crafted production imparts a sense of realism.
The constant awareness that you’re not watching a slickly packaged Hollywood film makes the proceedings seem all that more believable. The people on camera in The Legend of Boggy Creek look and sound scared. Somehow, against all odds, the film creates the illusion you’re watching some sort of weird story on the evening news. Not just a home movie featuring a guy in a gorilla suit.
The real stroke of genius behind The Legend of Boggy Creek wasn’t just the re-staging of strange sightings. It’s the way Pierce interweaves his monster tale with a dignified portrait of the local people and the type of lives they lead. It goes to great lengths to impart an appreciation for the idea of “wilderness” as well as man’s relationship to the natural world.
Making Your Hair Stand On End
At the beginning of The Legend of Boggy Creek, there’s a small boy (played by Pierce’s own son) who runs into the local general store. He’s been sent there by his mother to ask the older men there to return to their house and see the hairy creature that’s been sighted nearby. The men laugh off the boy’s entreaties and send him on his way.
Right after that, we see one of the men from the store come out of his own house with a barking dog, stand on the porch, and fire his shotgun into the darkness. While the narrator intones:
“That day in the store, Willie Smith didn’t believe me when I told him about a wild hairy creature in the woods…He believes me now”
This is followed by Mr. Smith retreating into the safety of his house and slamming the door shut. It’s enough to make your hair stand on end.
Choice Lines
Scenes like this are helped immeasurably by Pierce’s choice of narrator for the film. His name was Vern Stierman. In addition to having an unmistakable voice, he delivers his lines using a perfect inflection. It serves to draw you in and make you believe you’re hearing stories told from the perspective of someone who grew up in Fouke. He also gets to deliver some great lines:
“Fouke is a right pleasant place to live…until the sun goes down…”
“I doubt if you could find a lonelier, spookier place in the country than down around Boggy Creek. It twists and winds its way across the Fouke countryside, sheltering among its thickly wooded banks a multitude of creatures that run, fly, swim, creep, and crawl…”
A Sense of Wonder and Amazement
At the end of The Legend of Boggy Creek the small boy – now an adult – surveys the ruins of the old country farmhouse where he grew up:
“Yes, he’s still here. And you know, I’d almost like to hear that terrible cry again – just to be reminded that there is still a bit of wilderness left and that there are still mysteries which remain unsolved, and strange, unexplained noises in the night”
With that, The Legend of Boggy Creek ends, as the camera comes to rest on the sun setting over the trees in the distance, and the soundtrack echoes with the eerie roar of the creature one last time.
The result is an emotional reaction that’s a bit hard to describe. It’s simultaneously primal, frightening, and maybe even a little bit heart-breaking. It also reminds us of what it was once like to be a kid when the world was a place full of wonder and amazement, even in unlikely and desolate places such as Boggy Creek.
Finishing the Film
Pierce had essentially kept shooting footage until the rest of his funding had run out. The director then took what he had and traveled to Los Angeles in search of a place to edit it all together. To his chagrin, he found he didn’t have enough money left to pay a post house to finish the production.
After some negotiation, he found one who was willing to do the editing if he would pay some minimal fees upfront – most notably the editor’s salary. The owner agreed to defer payment and settled for a percentage of the film’s profits once it was released.
After Pierce had a finished film ready to show, he next went looking for a distributor. It was here that he faced perhaps his biggest challenge. Calling on practically every studio in town, he was repeatedly hung up on and laughed at to his face. No one was interested in having anything to do with a low-budget “Bigfoot movie.”
One Final Try
Pierce literally exhausted all of his options in Los Angeles before traveling back to Texarkana with his lone print of the film. Things were looking incredibly grim. Pierce’s client was calling every day about his $100,000 investment. The fledgling filmmaker had his film, but couldn’t find anyone willing to screen it, much less pay him for the rights.
With his back to the wall, Pierce decided he’d show it himself. Working up his nerve, he went to visit Mr. Ledwell one more time and asked for an additional $3,500. He then calmly explained what he had in mind. Pierce had found an old abandoned theater in downtown Texarkana and had located a projectionist who had formerly worked there.
The projectionist had assured Pierce that despite their age, the projectors were still functioning. After the owners of the property were contacted, they agreed to rent the theater to Pierce for one week for that $3,500 sum.
‘The Legend of Boggy Creek’ (1972) ended up being an improbable huge success for director Charles Pierce.
Four-Walling
Pierce told his sole financier that this was their only option. Otherwise, there would be no way he’d ever see a return on his original investment. Reluctantly, the businessman agreed and wrote Pierce one last check.
In the industry, this practice of renting out individual theaters is known as “four-walling,” since you get all “four walls” of the theater. No more, and no less. But when Pierce peeked inside the venue, he was appalled at what he found. Sure, the projectors worked, but the place was absolutely filthy. He had to hose down the walls and floors so it wouldn’t get a health code violation.
An Unexpected Success
After this prep work, The Legend of Boggy Creek premiered on August 18, 1972. Everyone, including Pierce, was shocked at the response. Local people still remembered the wave of Fouke Monster sightings from about a year before. After minimal advertising, Pierce was amazed to see the ticket line stretching down the street on opening night. He later described what it was like:
“There were people lined up for four or five blocks. People had brown bag lunches with ’em because they knew they couldn’t get into the next showing, but they didn’t want to lose their place in line…I knew it was gonna work when they started laughing and getting excited…It had a G rating so the kids were in there screaming – it was scaring’ the devil out of ‘em. I knew I had a winner”
The Legend of Boggy Creek subsequently sold out show after show. Buoyed by this initial success, Pierce expanded to a second theater. Within just a couple of weeks, the film had made over $50,000. Soon, Pierce was able to pay back his boss and the post house in Los Angeles the money he owed, along with a tidy profit for the goodwill they had shown him. However, he still hadn’t pocketed any proceeds for himself.
The Final Payoff
Soon, all the studios and distribution companies who had previously rejected him were now trying to negotiate a deal. They made him some generous offers in an attempt to buy the distribution rights. However, following a tried and true marketing model, they also wanted to “test” screen the film in select markets and make additional changes based on audience reactions. Pierce refused and continued to four-wall his showings in his two theaters.
Then, Pierce struck a deal with Howco International. The director asked, and received, a check for over $1 million. In return, Howco got 50% of the tickets sales. Pierce also made a deal with American International Pictures to distribute the film on a worldwide basis. As the number of theaters expanded, so did the ticket sales.
Ultimately, The Legend of Boggy Creek would go on to make $25 million, which in 1972 dollars, was huge. The cult-classic film ended up being among the highest-grossing films of the year. Further, Charles Pierce – who previously had been eking out a living making low-budget commercials – had suddenly found himself a multimillionaire. This all happened within just a couple of months.
Legacy
In an interview with the Texarkana Gazette, the Mayor of Fouke explained how the success of the film had taken everyone aback:
“The guy who made the movie had never made one in his life. The guy who backed the movie had never backed a movie in his life. The people who acted in the movie had never acted before. I don’t think you could have foreseen anything happening on it.”
Charles B. Pierce passed away in 2010 at the age of 71. Despite his other successes, including The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976) his obituaries invariably listed The Legend of Boggy Creek as the director’s biggest claim to fame.
Maybe that’s because what he created was something truly unique. A film that creates a genuine longing in the viewer for something just out of reach. A mystery with no solution, as well as an appreciation for why so many people love going for long walks in the woods with no one else around.
Listen to My Lonely Cry…
Despite its low-budget trappings, Pierce’s film is somehow able to articulate the price we pay for wholeheartedly embracing civilization at the expense of our rural roots. This feeling is driven home by the song that Pierce wrote and performed for the movie, which plays over those lonely shots of the remote Arkansas swamps…
“This is where the creature goes…
Safe within the world he knows…
Perhaps he dimly wonders why…
There is no other such as I…
To touch, to love before I die…
To listen to my lonely cry…”
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