So what was the name of the little town where the movie was actually filmed? The GREAT Mr. Finley Hays told me years ago that the movie was filmed along the Siletz River. I would love to know where the town is, though, because I hope to visit that place in person some day.
I remember several good points in the movie. Like when they tossed the sticks of dynamite at the fleeing union rep.... and yeah, that was a good shot when Newman's double sat on the stub of the tree after he topped it, although I suspect that in real life, he would have probably spent the rest of the day with his butt covered in pitch. I assume they were supposedly cutting a tail spar, for logging skyline, or slack line? I don't recall seeing a carriage used. One of my favorite points was when Newman sawed the union rep's desk in half.
Several of the actors had to be local loggers. Remember the one at the hospital who had dark hair on the top of his head, and salt and pepper hair under the line where the hard hat covered? That was a dead giveaway.
The Olympia beer was a good touch, as was the radio station. I used to swim in the Des Chutes River at the Oly brewery. My father logged some beautiful old growth timber up in the headwaters of the Des Chutes in about 1971, and raised a big stink when the bean counters in Federal Way ordered him to buck it all in 14 and 16 foot lengths, to play a little game and squeeze a little more scale out of it. And those logs stayed in a raft, in Puget Sound, I believe, for a very long time, because no one would buy them because of the lengths they were bucked to.
Remember the tall skinny guy (Les?) who bummed a ride across the river, and was complaining about picking berries instead of logging? He played a similar despicable part in the original version of the movie 'The Longest Yard'.
Phhtttt.
