What ensued was a wild working vacation between Hollywood and Oregonians involving beer, sex, scotch, loggers, beaches, and perhaps, a spectacularly vandalized pool table. The story was Sometimes a Great Notion and it has a fanatical following in the Pacific Northwest. In June 1970, the biggest movie star in the world traveled to the Oregon Coast to film an epic novel about a defiant family of loggers written by a home grown counterculture hero. Nestucca Spit Press announces the release of Sometimes a Great Movie: Paul Newman, Ken Kesey and the Filming of the Great Oregon Novel, by Oregon author Matt Love. Sometimes a Great Movie: Paul Newman, Ken Kesey and the Filming of the Great Oregon Novel His latest books are A Nice Piece of Astoria: A Narrative Guide and his debut novel, The Great Birthright. Holbrook Literary Legacy Award for his contributions to Oregon history and literature. In 2009, Love won the Oregon Literary Arts’ Stewart H. He’s the author/editor of 14 books about Oregon. Matt Love lives in Astoria on the Oregon Coast and is the publisher of Nestucca Spit Press. The screening will also feature home movie footage of the production. He will also discuss new revelations about the legend of whether Newman cut the legs off a tavern pool table with a chainsaw during the production.

The film was released in 1971 to an indifferent nationwide audience but remains a cult classic in the Pacific Northwest.Īstoria writer Matt Love, author of Sometimes a Great Movie: Paul Newman, Ken Kesey and the Filming of the Great Oregon Novel, will introduce the movie and take questions after the screening. The movie, adapted from Ken Kesey’s epic novel about a defiant family of loggers, starred Paul Newman and was filmed on the Central Oregon Coast during the summer of 1970. On Wednesday December 30th The Sou’wester will host a rare public screening of Sometimes a Great Notion.

Sometimes a great notion author