TEXARKANA -- Pamula Pierce Barcelou has gained copyright to one of her father Charles B. Pierce's most beloved films, The Legend of Boggy Creek, and is having the movie restored for a future re-release, she said.
Shot in the early 1970s in a docudrama style, The Legend of Boggy Creek became a cult hit for Pierce, a longtime Texarkana resident who also directed The Town That Dreaded Sundown and other independent feature films.
The Legend of Boggy Creek chronicles the based-on-real-life encounters between Fouke-area residents and the Fouke Monster -- a shaggy, Bigfootesque creature said to roam the nearby woods and swampy waterways.
Barcelou said Steve Ledwell of Ledwell & Son assigned her copyright of both Boggy Creek and another Pierce film, Bootleggers. Ledwell's father, L.W., helped finance The Legend of Boggy Creek, which found success as a low-budget, drive-in creature feature.
The Legend of Boggy Creek is being restored at the George Eastman Museum in New York and, for the first time since it was released, the movie will appear as it did during its theatrical release, unlike bootleg versions out there now, Barcelou said.
"We have a clean, clear beautiful print that is being remastered," Barcelou said, noting various elements have been put together to make the restored version, including negatives from a Technicolor office in Burbank, Calif.
Barecelou said she aims to release Boggy Creek on Blu-ray and screen it in movie theaters after working on the sound. She'd like to hold a "Charles B. Pierce-style" premiere at the historic Perot Theatre in Texarkana.
"We will also be re-releasing theatrically," said Barcelou, noting she has gone back and forth to Rochester, N.Y., where the restoration work is being completed, to see the project's progress. This will make the film look how it was meant to appear, she said, adding that Boggy Creek fans have long requested this type of clear version.
"I saw it up on the big screen for the first time in 45 years and it made me cry," Barcelou said, noting the restoration and remastering work will help the colors pop in the swamp scenes.
Kyle Alvut, who manages the digital part of film preservation services for the George Eastman Museum, said they are taking analog elements and turning them into digital content to produce Blu-ray and high-definition copies, preparing the movie for distribution.
"Just like it would be a brand-new movie," Alvut said.
They've received a few elements and are sorting through them before deciding the best way to re-conform to the original movie. It's the kind of work they do to restore movies made a century ago.
"They're original prints, original negatives she's finding," Alvut said of Barcelou's project.
It's a process of selecting and evaluating, scanning and restoring. What they'll end up with is a digital source master, he said.
Barcelou said she plans to make the local premiere a "great big event" for Texarkana. She's worked on the project for the past three years, tracking down elements to be restored and acquiring copyright.
She said she plans to dedicate this Boggy Creek re-release to Ledwell, too.
"I'm very humbled and honored that Steve entrusted their preservation to me," she said. "These films would have been lost forever had Steve not assigned me these rights."
State Desk on 08/02/2018