The real legend of BOGGY CREEK

Acclaimed film director enjoying quiet life in Redfield

By Jeff LeMaster (Contact)

LITTLE ROCK — The opening scenes of the 1972 film The Legend Of Boggy Creek show various forms of wildlife along river bottoms in Arkansas. It’s a similar view the film’s director, Charles B. Pierce, has now at his residence in Redfield.

Pierce and his wife, Beth, have set up semi-permanent camp with their recreational vehicle at Tar Camp Campground.

Thirty-five years ago, Pierce helped fan the flame of America’s obsession with Bigfoot when he released his debut film in his hometown of Texarkana. The Legend Of Boggy Creek, a docu-drama about various sightings of a Bigfoot-like beast in and around Fouke, played drive-in theaters across the countryand scared many a viewer despite its lack of any graphic violence and its G rating.

Pierce said just the thought of a Bigfoot was enough to give people the willies back then. He said that at the film’s premiere, “The first time that booger (the monster) jumped out, those people jumped up and liked to have turned that theater over.”

Pierce will take part in a discussion with childhood friend and television producer Harry Thomason at the Little Rock Film Festival Saturday at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library.

Before the term “independent filmmaker” was ever coined, Pierce was rewriting the rules on how to make movies.

“I shot [Boggy Creek] with ninehigh school boys and a borrowed camera,” he said.

Once he was done shooting, “Charlie loaded all that film into his trunk and took off for California,” Beth Pierce said.

Pierce returned to Arkansas, hoping to show his film in local theaters in the southwest part of the state. After being turned down several times, Pierce rented out an abandoned theater in Texarkana.

“He took duct tape and a water hose and went to work cleaning up that theater,” Beth Pierce said.

Pierce said he called all his friends and relatives and told them to come down to the theater to see his movie. He had some of his friends and family stand in lineto buy a ticket, go to the back of the theater, change clothes and then get back in line to give the appearance of a larger crowd.

The film captured the imagination of local audiences and the attention of theater owners across the South. Soon The Legend Of Boggy Creek was a staple at drive-ins across the country.

The film cost Pierce $166,000 to make. When all was said and done, he made $20 million. He parlayed that success into another Arkansas film project, Bootleggers.

Set in the Ozark hills around Calico Rock, the film was a Hatfield/McCoy-type story of feuding moonshiners. Pierce fondly recalled filming several high-speed chases in Model-A cars through the Ozark Mountains.

“I was most of the time in one of those cars,” he said.

Beth Pierce recalled one story from when Bootleggers was being filmed. She said Charlie, as she calls him, approached a local family about rentingtheir house to film its exterior for several days.

To do so, though, Pierce would need to take down a large television antennae in the front yard.

The family agreed, with the condition that the film crew put the antennae back up each day before 5 p.m. “so they could watch their shows.”

Pierce agreed, and when they were done filming and put the antennae back up the final day, Pierce sent his crew inside to make sure the TV was still working.

“It wasn’t working,” Pierce said, “so we replaced the cable. It still wasn’t working ... so I said, ‘Just go to town and buy them a new TV.’”

Pierce’s crew bought a color TV, and when they hooked it up, the family’s mother said, “Well, we ain’t had a picture in years. We’ve just been listenin’ to it.”

Meeting local characters like that was something Pierce enjoyed while making movies, and after he retired from a career in which he went on to direct more films, write screenplays (including the script for Sudden Impact, in which Clint Eastwood quipped his famousline, “G o ahead, make my day”) and designed sets for television shows, Charles and Beth bought an RV and traveled around, basing their lives first at DeGray Lake and then at Tar Camp Campground in Redfield.

And while he’s off icially retired, Pierce isn’t necessarily done in the movie-making business.

“It’s peaceful here,” Beth Pierce said of Redfield, “and it gives Charlie a place where he can work on his screenplays.”

Now 70, Pierce knows he can’t get out and race Model-A’s anymore, but the fire for making movies is still there.

“If I had the time and stuff to do it, I’d go out that door and do it again,” he said.

In addition to Pierce’s discussion with Thomason this weekend, three of his films - The Legend of Boggy Creek, Bootleggers and The Town That Dreaded Sundown - will be screened at the Little Rock Film Festival. For showtimes and locations, go to www.littlerockfilmfestival.org.

- jlemaster@ arkansasonline.com

Tri-Lakes, Pages 61, 65 on 05/15/2008