Thing is, they never did find it

And then I received this message from Spokane reader Dale Roloff:

“In your article on Spokane film locations, your coda on movies shot in the region left out one major motion picture: ‘Northwest Passage’ (1940). It was probably the only major motion picture shot in our region (Bonner County near Sandpoint) that garnered good reviews and awards (Oscar nomination for best color cinematography ), and featured three major stars ( Spencer Tracy , Walter Brennan and Robert Young, the last more noted in TV than movies).

“It cost MGM $2 million, presumably because of high location costs, which was a lot of money for that time and probably soured them against location shoots for their major period productions after that. Another negative about this film was in its depiction of the savage Indian enemies and the brutality it engendered in the American survivors (one infamous scene has a starving soldier cannibalizing a dead warrior), although director King Vidor may have done so as a way of pointing out the similar atrocities by Axis troops against our soon-to-be European allies in World War 2.

Roloff also suggest the Web site Films in America for, he says, “a good comprehensive listing of movies shot in our area.”