What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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Editor's Note: This story originally appeared Aug. 8 in What's Up! BECCA MARTIN-BROWN NWA Democrat-Gazette F ilmmaker Larry Foley admits that the story of "Indians, Outlaws, Marshals and the Hangin' Judge" has largely been a regional one — until now. Now, his film by that name has elevated the "real story of Fort Smith [to] be considered up there with Deadwood, Tombstone and Dodge City when telling tales of the Wild West." Foley's film, released in 2020, was slated as one of the featured films at the first Fort Smith International Film Festival Aug. 13-14. It's already been screened or is scheduled for some 20 festivals, Foley says, as diverse as the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, the Will Rogers Motion Picture Festival, the Cowpokes International Film Festival and the St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase. Just last weekend, the film won three awards at NewsFest International Film and Writers Festival in Las Vegas: Best Feature Documentary, Best Trailer and the Grand Festival Award for overall best film. "Releasing a film during a pandemic has been a challenge," says Foley, the film's producer, director and writer, who is also a professor and chairman of the School of Journalism and Strategic Media at the University of Arkansas. "Public screenings were virtually impossible. So we went the film festival route to get our documentary exposure. The festivals adapted and went virtual with their screenings, but at least we got it out there. "It's going to be fun to get to show 'Indians, Outlaws, Marshals and the Hangin' Judge,' in person to the 'hometown crowd' where the story is set," Foley adds. "I'm honored to be part of the inaugural Fort Smith International Film Festival, [in a place] where Judge Parker and his deputies reigned for more than two decades during a colorful and controversial time in American history." The story of Judge Isaac C. Parker, whose strict rule of law earned him the sobriquet "the hanging judge," captured Foley's attention way back when he was a Cub Scout on a field trip to the old federal courthouse in Fort Smith in the mid-1960s. "I've done a few previous stories about the subject, but I've always wanted to produce the definitive documentary on Judge Parker and those Wild West days of the late 19th century," he explains. "And I wanted to include the story of American Indians, from their point of view, the role they played, and how they got to what we now know as Oklahoma. "The story wouldn't leave me alone. So, here it is!" Appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant, Isaac Charles Parker served as federal judge for the Federal Court of the Western District of Arkansas in Fort Smith from 1875 to 1896. According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, his court was unique in the fact that he had jurisdiction over all of Indian Territory, covering more than 74,000 square miles." Longtime Fayetteville actor Bill Rogers, now living in Colorado, says he DECEMBER 19-25, 2021 WHAT'S UP! 7 YEAR IN REVIEW See Judge Page 37 The Real Wild West Foley film the definitive story of 'Hangin' Judge' Infamous as 19th century Judge Isaac C. Parker was a hangman. Larry Foley's new film, "Indians, Outlaws, Marshals and the Hangin' Judge," considers Parker and the "Wild West" where his word was law. (Courtesy Photo/James Brewer)