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'Hidalgo' gallops from truth
By BUZZY HASSRICK
This document was published online on Friday, March 12, 2004
Although the new Disney movie "Hidalgo" is not a cartoon, two curators at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center become animated when they talk about the script.
"If they had quit saying it was based on a true story, if they had dropped that, I wouldn't care," Buffalo Bill Museum Curator Juti Winchester says.
She led a lively exchange about the movie Monday night, after a group of BBHC staffers and friends watched Hidalgo.
The hero, Frank T. Hopkins, wrote in the 1940s that during the 1890s he witnessed the massacre at Wounded Knee, performed in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show and participated in more than 400 long-distance horse races. While those events did occur during his lifetime, 1865-1951, Winchester says Hopkins apparently adopted the accounts of the day.
"He inserted himself into the story," she says.
Regarding the scenes with Buffalo Bill, Winchester notes two authentic depictions - his beaded red shirt and the show tunes. The shirt was patterned after one in the BBHC collections, after the museum provided an image.
"His shirt was really good," adds Lynn Houze, Buffalo Bill Museum assistant curator.
The authentic Wild West score came from Northwest College professor Mike Masterson.
"The music was good," says Winchester, though she notes one selection was not written until 1913.
"The horses were great," adds Bob White, assistant firearms curator.
The portrayal of Buffalo Bill is described by Houze as "OK," but she criticizes the shots of him using a megaphone in the arena, since Cody had an announcer.
The portrayal of Annie Oakley, however, belied her genteel nature, BBHC board chairman Al Simpson says. She was a teetotaler who never swore, Winchester adds.
Another scene amused Cody Firearms Museum Curator David Kennedy - the one where the sheik offers Hopkins $10,000 for a Colt.
"It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud," he says.
The sheik could have paid $40 or $50 for a Colt at that time, including delivery.
"And there were much newer, better guns available," Kennedy adds.
The Colt that Hopkins carried was 20 or 30 years old during the movie's period. The other guns, like the embellished flintlock used to start the race, seemed appropriate for the time period, Kennedy says.
The gun twirling by Cody amused Winchester, too.
"I laughed when Buffalo Bill flipped the gun," she says.
A scene that did not amuse her was the Wild West crowd booing Sitting Bull. Public disdain for the man who killed Custer was short lived and quickly became nostalgia for a vanishing race, Winchester says.
Other inaccuracies as she researched Hopkins for the History Channel and called sources such as the Long Riders' Guild, based in Kentucky.
"This man is not anywhere in our records," Winchester says after poring through the archives. "We found zilch."
The Saudi Gazette called her to say a 3,000-mile race across the Arabian peninsula never occurred. The Galveston Historical Society said a race never occurred from there to Rutland, Vt., as the movie claims.
The disagreement became a "parry and thrust" with screenwriter John Fusco.
"I've invited Fusco to come to the Buffalo Bill Historical Center and lay out his information," Winchester says. "If he believes he has a true story, he won't have any hesitation.
"I want to lay out an olive branch and see if he comes."
The debate has generated a surge of inquiries to the BBHC and thus created one positive spinoff.
"People know we're a place to go for information," Winchester says.
She and the staff expect this year's visitors to ask for information about the Hidalgo star and have concocted a slogan:
"Looking for Frank Hopkins? So are we."
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