Seeley Lake Historic Film Club

Roughly once per month a small film club meets in the hayloft of the Seeley Lake Historic Museum for a curated selection of films with one common theme, a connection to the state of Montana.

"We've done writings of a well-known Missoula writer named Dorothy M. Johnson, three of whose books were made into movies," said Tom Browder, who organizes the event and is part of deciding which films to show.

Johnson, who was a prolific author of western-themed books, and an instructor at the University of Montana's School of journalism wrote the source material for The Hanging Tree (1959), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), and A Man Called Horse (1970) which have all been shown by the impromptu film club.

Over the years they've been upgrading the gear and slowly acquiring black-out curtains to cover the windows and make the upstairs of the Seeley Lake Historic Museum, commonly referred to as "the barn", into a better version of a movie theater.

Each month they convene on the hardwood upper floor to watch another film and briefly discuss its historical context or relation to the state of Montana.

"A lot of it was these kinds of old Westerns, but that's kind of what we grew up with," Browder said.

On the night of Saturday, April 23 the film was The Cattle Queen of Montana, a western with little dimension but filmed with the beautiful backdrop of Glacier National Park.

Before the showing the movie-goers made a big batch of microwave popcorn and shared some laughs at the list of non-Native American actors playing "Indian" characters.

The film is about a young woman who moves to Montana to take up on a land claim made by her now-deceased father, but when she arrives she discovers that the claim has expired and is now in the hands of a villainous rancher who she suspects had her father murdered.

This is one of few westerns with a strong female lead, and features Barbara Stanwyk as the tough-as-nails, Sierra Nevada Jones, one of three times that Stanwyck played a woman as tough and as ruggedly dressed as the men.

Next to her rugged leadership the young rebel who comes to her aid, a young Ronald Reagan (19 years before he ran for President) seems rather regular and almost unnecessary as a savior.

The few scenes of tacked-on romance draws laughs from the room.

While Montana used to be a film-industry favorite because of the dramatic mountain backgrounds which didn't require studio construction, over time it's become less prevalent and film crews opteed instead to film in Alberta, Canada and pass it off as Montana.

But after the wild success of Paramount's Yellowstone series, and a few political moves to create tax incentives, the film industry is starting to move back.

"Because of what they've done with the film board in Helena and credits, it's getting some of the national film industry back," Browder said.

The criteria for being shown in the Barn in Seeley Lake is very loose and whether the writer, actor, or a single scene has a tie to the Big Sky State then they'll play it on their big screen.

Although the group says they'll show films all summer if there's a public interest, the next scheduled showing is currently planned as the final one until after the tourist season.

Stephen Spielberg's "Always" (1989) starring Richard Dreyfus and John Goodman and filmed partially in Libby will be shown upstairs in the barn on 05/27 at 7 p.m. Admission is free.