By Erin Free
FilmInk salutes the work of creatives who have never truly received the credit that they deserve. In this installment: American director and producer Kieth Merrill, who helmed The Great American Cowboy, Three Warriors, Windwalker, Take Down and more.
For better or worse, Hollywood is a pretty left-leaning place, with most actors and filmmakers taking a fairly progressive, liberal stance when it comes to their work and public lives. Filmmakers who lean a little more to the right politically have a pretty good chance of being marginalised, even when their opinions are far from radical. And with marginalisation comes under-celebration, and with under-celebration often comes a berth in the Unsung Auteurs column. Just ask Christopher Cain…
You couldn’t get less hip, and thus more Hollywood-marginalised, than director Kieth Merrill. He was born in 1940 in Farmington, Utah, a small, pioneer-founded town just out of Salt Lake City. He’s a lifelong active member of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints; he served as a missionary for the church in Denmark; and he graduated from Brigham Young University. Yep, now 86-year-old Kieth Merrill is a card-carrying Mormon, and he even gained a little notoriety back in 2021 when he publicly refused to watch the abortion-themed film Never Rarely Sometimes Always for Oscars consideration as a voting member of The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.
You can’t get more conservative than that, but Kieth Merrill has made a few good movies, and they certainly have an authorial through-line. While his Mormon-commissioned docos (1990’s Legacy and 2000’s The Testaments) aren’t exactly sitting on our watch-list, Merrill’s mini-feature docos for IMAX – including the likes of Grand Canyon: The Hidden Secrets (1984), Niagara: Miracles, Myths And Magic (1986), Polynesian Odyssey (1991) and Yellowstone (1994) – have all conjured the requisite drama and visual dynamism that the format spruiked through its first years in the 1980s and 1990s, with 1997’s Amazon even scoring an Oscar nomination.
Though now best known for these nature-based huge-screen films, Merrill’s connection to America’s wide-open spaces was first forged way back in the early seventies with his debut 1973 feature documentary A Matter Of Winning, the stirring story of snowmobile racing champion Gordon Shafer. Merrill followed it with 1974’s rodeo doco The Great American Cowboy, which won an Oscar for Best Feature Documentary. Something of a technical watershed in the world of documentary filmmaking, the film nevertheless takes a classic approach to the form, detailing the rivalry between old stager Larry Mahan and up and comer Phil Lyne.
“I remember so many things about Oscars night, so many stories,” Merrill told Meridian Mag in 2012. “In 1974, Raquel Welch was a Hollywood sex symbol. When they announced she would be presenting the Academy Award for Best Feature Length Documentary, my heart stopped. I wanted to win, sure, but I suddenly realised that if I won, I would go on stage, she would hand me the Oscar, and I would be expected to kiss her. So, what’s the problem, right? Well, look at it from my perspective. If I kiss this gorgeous, sensual, erotic movie star in front of 70 million people watching on TV, not only do I have to explain it to my wife who is sitting in the fifth row, but I have to explain it to my mother who is watching in Farmington, Utah with the sisters from the Relief Society. On the other hand, if I don’t kiss her…I’ll be forever trying to explain it to the Elder’s quorum. But yes, I kissed Raquel Welch.”
Merrill made his fictional feature debut with 1977’s Three Warriors, a family adventure about a young Native-American boy (McKee Redwing) who tangles with a trio of horse thieves when they steal his eponymous steed. Now completely forgotten, Three Warriors is visually arresting and was an early film to feature Native-American actors and offer a wholly sympathetic approach to the Native-American experience. Merrill was again sympathetic to the Native-American cause in 1981’s Windwalker, but fudged things a little by casting Brit Trevor Howard (!) in the title role of an aged Cheyenne warrior and James Remar as his younger self. That said, the film is still fascinating, with a cast of solely Native-American characters, a singularly Native-American-focused narrative, and a stunning use of locations.
Outside of a solid sports flick in 1980’s Take Down (Edward Herrmann is a schoolteacher lumped with coaching a high school wrestling team) and a fight-the-system satire in 1981’s Harry’s War (Edward Herrmann takes on the IRS), Merrill has focused on nature docos, straight-to-home-entertainment family movies (2004’s The 12 Dogs Of Christmas), telemovies (1980’s Mormon-themed Mr. Krueger’s Christmas starred Jimmy Stewart!) and heavily religious-themed works with a very much built-in audience.
It’s not a resume that would have most cineastes salivating, but Kieth Merrill has made some important, enjoyable films in a distinct authorial voice, and his role in the development of the IMAX format is near-essential. “Movie-making is the art of telling stories with images,” Merrill told Meridian Mag in 2012. “IMAX is the largest film format in the world and the films play on the largest screens ever created. How could you not love that?”
If you liked this story, check out our features on other unsung auteurs Tim Hill, Martin Bell, Joan Freeman, Rod Amateau, Sam Wanamaker, Paul Aaron, Savage Steve Holland, Rudy Wurlitzer, Keith Gordon, Alan Metter, Lynne Littman, Chuck Russell, John Derek, Don Chaffey, Harley Cokeliss, Jeannot Szwarc, Craig Gillespie, David Greene, Ernest Pintoff, Paul Williams, Jo Heims, Lee H. Katzin, Christoper Cain, Ken Wiederhorn, Barbara Loden, David Mackenzie, Alan Rudolph, James Lee Barrett, Edwin “Bud” Shrake, Joan Tewkesbury, Jamaa Fanaka, Jack Starrett, Joseph Sargent, Jeffrey Schwarz, George Sidney, Philip Dunne, Zak Hilditch, Luke Sparke, Cyrus Nowrasteh, Morgan Matthews, Tom Laughlin, Diane Keaton, Ed Hunt, Nancy Savoca, Robert Vincent O’Neil, Marvin J. Chomsky, Sam Firstenberg, Jack Sholder, Richard Gray, Giuseppe Andrews, Gus Trikonis, Greydon Clark, Frances Doel, Gordon Douglas, Billy Fine, Craig R. Baxley, Harvey Bernhard, Bert I. Gordon, James Fargo, Jeremy Kagan, Robby Benson, Robert Hiltzik, John Carl Buechler, Rick Carter, Paul Dehn, Bob Kelljan, Kevin Connor, Ralph Nelson, William A. Graham, Judith Rascoe, Michael Pressman, Peter Carter, Leo V. Gordon, Dalene Young, Gary Nelson, Fred Walton, James Frawley, Pete Docter, Max Baer Jr., James Clavell, Ronald F. Maxwell, Frank D. Gilroy, John Hough, Dick Richards, William Girdler, Rayland Jensen, Richard T. Heffron, Christopher Jones, Earl Owensby, James Bridges, Jeff Kanew, Robert Butler, Leigh Chapman, Joe Camp, John Patrick Shanley, William Peter Blatty, Peter Clifton, Peter R. Hunt, Shaun Grant, James B. Harris, Gerald Wilson, Patricia Birch, Buzz Kulik, Kris Kristofferson, Rick Rosenthal, Kirsten Smith & Karen McCullah, Jerrold Freeman, William Dear, Anthony Harvey, Douglas Hickox, Karen Arthur, Larry Peerce, Tony Goldwyn, Brian G. Hutton, Shelley Duvall, Robert Towne, David Giler, William D. Wittliff, Tom DeSimone, Ulu Grosbard, Denis Sanders, Daryl Duke, Jack McCoy, James William Guercio, James Goldstone, Daniel Nettheim, Goran Stolevski, Jared & Jerusha Hess, William Richert, Michael Jenkins, Robert M. Young, Robert Thom, Graeme Clifford, Frank Howson, Oliver Hermanus, Jennings Lang, Matthew Saville, Sophie Hyde, John Curran, Jesse Peretz, Anthony Hayes, Stuart Blumberg, Stewart Copeland, Harriet Frank Jr & Irving Ravetch, Angelo Pizzo, John & Joyce Corrington, Robert Dillon, Irene Kamp, Albert Maltz, Nancy Dowd, Barry Michael Cooper, Gladys Hill, Walon Green, Eleanor Bergstein, William W. Norton, Helen Childress, Bill Lancaster, Lucinda Coxon, Ernest Tidyman, Shauna Cross, Troy Kennedy Martin, Kelly Marcel, Alan Sharp, Leslie Dixon, Jeremy Podeswa, Ferd & Beverly Sebastian, Anthony Page, Julie Gavras, Ted Post, Sarah Jacobson, Anton Corbijn, Gillian Robespierre, Brandon Cronenberg, Laszlo Nemes, Ayelat Menahemi, Ivan Tors, Amanda King & Fabio Cavadini, Cathy Henkel, Colin Higgins, Paul McGuigan, Rose Bosch, Dan Gilroy, Tanya Wexler, Clio Barnard, Robert Aldrich, Maya Forbes, Steven Kastrissios, Talya Lavie, Michael Rowe, Rebecca Cremona, Stephen Hopkins, Tony Bill, Sarah Gavron, Martin Davidson, Fran Rubel Kuzui, Elliot Silverstein, Liz Garbus, Victor Fleming, Barbara Peeters, Robert Benton, Lynn Shelton, Tom Gries, Randa Haines, Leslie H. Martinson, Nancy Kelly, Paul Newman, Brett Haley, Lynne Ramsay, Vernon Zimmerman, Lisa Cholodenko, Robert Greenwald, Phyllida Lloyd, Milton Katselas, Karyn Kusama, Seijun Suzuki, Albert Pyun, Cherie Nowlan, Steve Binder, Jack Cardiff, Anne Fletcher ,Bobcat Goldthwait, Donna Deitch, Frank Pierson, Ann Turner, Jerry Schatzberg, Antonia Bird, Jack Smight, Marielle Heller, James Glickenhaus, Euzhan Palcy, Bill L. Norton, Larysa Kondracki, Mel Stuart, Nanette Burstein, George Armitage, Mary Lambert, James Foley, Lewis John Carlino, Debra Granik, Taylor Sheridan, Laurie Collyer, Jay Roach, Barbara Kopple, John D. Hancock, Sara Colangelo, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Joyce Chopra, Mike Newell, Gina Prince-Bythewood, John Lee Hancock, Allison Anders, Daniel Petrie Sr., Katt Shea, Frank Perry, Amy Holden Jones, Stuart Rosenberg, Penelope Spheeris, Charles B. Pierce, Tamra Davis, Norman Taurog, Jennifer Lee, Paul Wendkos, Marisa Silver, John Mackenzie, Ida Lupino, John V. Soto, Martha Coolidge, Peter Hyams, Tim Hunter, Stephanie Rothman, Betty Thomas, John Flynn, Lizzie Borden, Lionel Jeffries, Lexi Alexander, Alkinos Tsilimidos, Stewart Raffill, Lamont Johnson, Maggie Greenwald and Tamara Jenkins.
