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Colorado Westerns

BY MIKE COPPOCK

“They make movies that have family values,” actor Buck Taylor says about the Simpson brothers in his deep southern drawl. “They show children what is right and what is wrong while also telling them about the Old West, and I’m all for that.”

“You can’t beat Colorado for scenery,” says film maker Larry Simpson. “The other important reason we shoot in Colorado in the summer is to get out of the blowtorch heat Oklahoma has that time of the year.”

Larry and his brother Rick talk with me at the Alamosa airport while they wait to pick up actor Buck Taylor, to be featured in the scenes they are filming tomorrow. Puffs of popcorn clouds dot the summer sky as the plane lands. Most of the passengers come off wide-eyed, a good sign that there was turbulence during the landing.

But 72-year-old Buck Taylor seems unruffled by his flight. He’s wearing cowboy boots, cowboy hat and a jacket and is sporting a goatee and long, steel-gray hair. His last film was the upcoming blockbuster Cowboys and Aliens, to be released this summer. Now he has arrived in Alamosa for the under-the-radar Simpson brothers’ project.

“They make movies that have family values,” Buck says about the brothers in his deep southern drawl. “They show children what is right and what is wrong while also telling them about the Old West, and I’m all for that.”

Taylor and the Simpson brothers soon start talking about the demise of Buckskin Joe’s. Word is already out that the Colorado landmark has not only been sold, but will also be dismantled and moved somewhere else. The Old West movie set and tourist attraction was formerly located 8 miles outside of Cañon City, only one of more than 20 locations used by the Simpson brothers, including Colorado sites in Buena Vista, Cripple Creek and Alamosa.

Buckskin Joe’s Frontier Town and Railway was as close as Colorado has ever come to a permanent film set. Begun in 1957 as a “tourist trap,” the set was created when old buildings were brought to the 805-acre site from an 1860s mining camp named Buckskin Joe near Alma. Eventually, more than 30 structures from other ghost towns were hauled in to create an authentic place for tourists to watch re-enactments of gunfights and Old West hangings.

The Simpson brothers’ Cactus Creek was the last film shot at the Old West set, a location that had set the scene behind such legends as John Wayne, Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin in famous films like the original True Grit, The Cowboys, and Cat Ballou. While Colorado filming locations like Buckskin Joe’s hold a special place in their memories of movie making, the Simpson brothers didn’t start filming in Colorado until later in their careers. They made their first western in 1996. It was The Trail to Abilene, introducing their audience to the series character Stormy Lane, played by Rick; Texas Clapsaddle, played by Larry; and Cimarron Simmons, played by character actor Tom Ward.

Their father, K.P. Simpson, had infected them with the acting bug when they were kids. From a second floor office over his western wear store in Enid, Oklahoma, K.P. hammered out scripts on an old manual typewriter from research notes made while visiting rural museums. He then badgered NBC’s Unsolved Mysteries to produce them as episodes for the network’s highly watched television program. For compensation, K.P. took small acting roles rather than cash.

He was responsible for such Unsolved Mysteries episodes as those featuring the spiral staircase in Santa Fe, New Mexico; the possibility that Billy the Kid may have lived in Texas as Brushy Bill; and the kidnapping of 4-year-old Joan Croft as a tornado struck a small Oklahoma town. Two of them were later developed into full length films: Young Guns and CBS’s The Staircase.

Rick and Larry acted as gofers on the Unsolved Mysteries sets, hammering props and getting coffee and snacks for the crew. Deciding to use what they learned about filmmaking from this experience, they eventually poured nearly $150,000 into their first full length feature.

Like most independent filmmakers, once they had finished the film, they couldn’t figure out what to do with it. Hollywood was running away from westerns as fast as it could. Except for a few DVDs sold out of their father’s store, it appeared that the brothers’ film careers were over before they started.

But they didn’t give up. Rick put out a series of small ads in western magazines to spark DVD sales, and by 2001, orders covered their production costs.

The Simpson brothers then decided to make a second Western, Guns Along The Bravo. This time, they spread the word through their Oklahoma ranch connections requesting unpaid volunteers to help with everything from acting to props. The response was phenomenal. Within weeks, they had their cast, propmen, and locations. Oklahoma’s legendary Chain Ranch even offered the use of its cowboys, ranch and longhorns.

The film turned a profit within 18 months. More importantly, it caught the eye of a European distributor who began selling their movies overseas. Profits convinced the Simpson brothers to give their westerns more attention, which meant finding better summer locations to shoot at.

“The summers in Oklahoma are so hot, we had to wait for things to cool down before we could film, and that’s hard when you’re dealing with cast members who have other commitments,” Larry says.
Forming Skeleton Creek Productions in 2003, the Simpson brothers set their third western, Showdown At Devil’s Butte, in Colorado as well as Oklahoma. This film had a paid cast, paid technical support and paid location setups. Rick had the movie marketed through western magazines, through agricultural retail outlets and in Europe.

“That film was by far our biggest money-making movie,” Rick says with pride.

The film did two things for the Simpson brothers. First of all, it got Hollywood to notice them. Old-time television western actors began contacting them, asking if they could be in their next project. And secondly, it led to the creation of the Stormy Lane Fan Club.

“We had some grandparents visiting our store one day and they suggested we ought to start a fan club,” Rick says.

Made up of children mostly ages 3 to 9, the fan club now has 2,300 members from 37 states. For a $6 annual fee, children receive a certificate, a fake bullet or arrowhead, and a Code of the West to live by.

We have one member who is 93 years old,” says Larry.

Spurred on by the creation of the club, the Simpson brothers have continued to make movies. Peter Brown, the star of television show Laredo, was signed to be in their fourth western, Curse of the Sacred Mountain, mostly filmed in Colorado.

“After that, Colorado always ended up having some of our location shooting,” Rick says. “We’ll be back filming, probably next summer. These kids are still very interested in the West.”

And as long as they keep filming, Larry and Rick Simpson will be keeping the Old West alive in the hearts of the young and the young at heart.

You can order copies of the Simpson Brothers’ films at http://www.skeletoncreekproductions.com.

Mike Coppock grew up in western Oklahoma. His family made the Oklahoma land run, staking out their farm. He has been nominated twice for a Spur Award for his articles on the West.

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