Abstract

Beginning with the silent film era (1894–1929), the quest for oil has provided storyline. Although the movie Giant (1956) may be the best-known Hollywood depiction of the early North American oilfields, over fifty pre-1975 A and B movies share the search for oil as at least a portion of their storyline. While many movie viewers might be familiar with movies starring well-known actors/actresses such as Spencer Tracey, Clark Gable, Hedy Lamarr, and Claudette Colbert in Boom Town (1940), Susan Hayward in Tulsa (1949), James Stewart in Thunder Bay (1953), and John Wayne in Hellfighters (1969), many other well-known Hollywood stars had roles in oilfield movies. Even Superman found his way into the oilfields in Superman and the Mole Men (1951). Other Hollywood stars in oilfield movies includes Buster Crabbe, William Boyd, Irene Dunne, Roy Rogers, Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Charlton Heston, Jane Wyman, Mickey Rooney, Jack Nicholson, Michael Landon, George C. Scott, and Faye Dunaway.

Two oilfield movies were partially filmed along the Gulf Coast: Thunder Bay (1953) and Hellfighters (1969). Thunder Bay (Fig. 1) was filmed near Morgan City, Louisiana, and extras included South Louisiana shrimpers. Parts of Hellfighters (Fig. 2) were filmed at the Goose Creek Oil Field near Baytown, Texas.

Promotional material for the movies included posters of various sizes, press stills, lobby cards, press books, and postcards. Scenes of oilfield fires, oil well gushers, and brawling oilfield workers were accompanied by headlines describing adventure, the relentless search for riches, and often with a little romance thrown in. As Forbes staff writer Christopher Helman wrote (2010), “Oil makes good drama” and “ There’s not many industries that can turn a roughneck into a millionaire overnight.”