DAMON RUNYON SEMI-DOCUMENTARY TRANSFORMED PUEBLO

by Jon Pompia

It was made by director/cinematographer John Johnson in 1979 on a meager $21,000 budget and a wealth of passion: with funding from The Colorado Humanities Project complemented by matching funds from local sources.
“Damon Runyon’s Pueblo” premiered on November 3, 1981, at the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center to great acclaim, and was recently screened as the official start to Damon Days Pueblo.
Set in 1879 to 1913, the film was shot locally over the span of 7 months at nearly 80 locations frequented by Damon Runyon, one of the literary world’s most unique and colorful voices and the highest-paid short story writer of his time. More than 200 actors in period costume appear in the film, with more than 100 organizations and individuals contributing to assure the film’s authenticity. It’s a young Damon Runyon and his ties to Pueblo that form the foundation of Johnson’s work.
Once he began to make a name for himself, Damon Runyon would refer to “my old hometown” in his articles and stories. Additionally, the character “Sky Masterson,” who appears in the short story that served as the inspiration for the Broadway hit “Guys and Dolls,” is based on the legendary lawman Bat Masterson, who was in Pueblo at the same time as Damon Runyon.
Coincidentally, the two became newspaper men in New York and developed a close friendship.
To attract the talent needed for the film, two casting calls drew the attention of nearly 300 actors, many with experience from Western-themed films produced in Southern Colorado. For the main character, Johnson needed two actors.
“I found a young boy named Andrew Meagher to cover the ages from 7 to 13,” Johnson wrote in a 1983 issue of American Cinematographer. “But out of the 300 people in the casting calls, none looked like Runyon. So we checked with the high school drama departments and had each one send their five most likely candidates in for an interview. “Finally, with number 24, we found a teenager, Eric Austin, to portray Runyon from 15 to 33. With a few makeup changes, his footage cut in well with Runyon’s photographs.” Reshaping an early 1980s Pueblo into the city of Damon Runyon’s era was not without challenges.
“If there was an existing building where he had worked, or which he’d written about, I wanted to get that on film: as much as for the historical record as for the appropriateness of the setting,” Johnson wrote. “This sometimes caused a great deal of work for the crew, in particular Joe Pachak, the art director. But we all felt it important enough that the whole film is, in truth, an accurate presentation of the Pueblo of the turn of the century. “Period films can be killers and accurate historical locations are terribly tough, particularly when you consider the size of our budget. We quite often had to use ingenuity where there was no money.”
As an example of necessity being the mother of invention, 20 pounds of White Magic laundry power served as a snow for a wintery scene.
It was Pachak’s duty to paint and embellish buildings and signs according to historic specs and also secure any needed props.
“Windows, by the way, were our biggest problem as far as set preparation,” Johnson wrote. “We came up with a mixed solution for preparing the many old structures which often would have 40 or 50 windows half boarded up and the other half broken out. “Those which were boarded, we painted to resemble a window frame with a curtain behind it.”
Gratefully, the City of Pueblo proved to be an amiable cooperating partner, providing cherry pickers and barricades when needed and dumping dirt on Downtown streets and then cleaning up after shooting was done, as examples.
“The Colorado and Wyoming Railroad lent us a freight train on which to film Runyon riding the rails,” Johnson wrote. “Because of their help, we got shots which we could get in no other way, of Runyon looking out of the moving freight car at the prairies and mountains of Colorado.”
The Pueblo Chieftain, Damon Runyon’s one-time employer, even lent a hand by helping to locate a rare antique wagon hearse. And Pueblo’s numerous antique shops were quick to lend any needed pieces, as were individual collectors.
Naturally, the Union Avenue District was featured prominently in the film, as was the Pueblo Press Building, with many of the interior shots taking place at the Union Depot. “Another old house which has had only three owners since it was built in 1904, and is filled with original furniture, served at various times as a funeral parlor, brothel, and a young couple’s home,” Johnson wrote.
To keep the work as “authentically Pueblo” possible, only two locations outside the county were used: the Colorado Heritage Center of the Colorado Historical Society in Denver and the oldest operating steam engine in Colorado, then located at the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden.
For a shot of Damon Runyon and American soldiers on a battlefield in the Philippines, the iconic enclosed garden of the Kona Kai Apartments was used.
In a period film of any type, costuming is of the essence. As a production assistant, Johnson’s wife Nadine researched clothing styles from the 1870s to 1920, making careful notes of the changes that occurred.
“Through an old friend at the Impossible Playhouse, she arranged a loan of about 50 appropriate suits and dresses for the length of the production,” Johnson wrote. “Meanwhile, I had contacted a local costume rental shop owned by Betty Helger, and she helped us out with particularly difficult clothes that would enrich a scene, or with props such as tall hats for derbys.”
For all involved, “Damon Runyon’s Pueblo” was a true labor of love.
“The stamina required to persevere over a seven-month period shooting schedule while continuing day jobs and rarely having any free time is unhuman,” Johnson wrote. “You haven’t lived until you find yourself unloading a freight wagon by hand from a pickup truck on a snowy pre-dawn morning. Or doing the preparation for the weekend shoot while also trying to fix the last hundred windows and two facades for the big sequence down the line.
“Sometimes, I think filmmakers and artists in general are crazy, but the work is so enthralling, and the problems so bizarre, that I find it irresistible and so did everyone else on the crew.”