When Hollywood Came to the Palouse
- LCHS
- Sep 17
- 6 min read
This article first appeared in the September/October 2025 edition of Home & Harvest magazine.
By Elaina Pierson, Office Coordinator
In the summer of 1990, a little bit of Hollywood arrived on the Palouse. With headlines like “Our own ‘Field of Dreams?’” and “Lights, Camera, Genesee,” local and regional newspapers buzzed with the news that a baseball movie by Paramount Pictures would soon be filmed in the area. Starring seasoned actors Edward James Olmos, then known for “Miami Vice” and an Academy Award nomination for “Stand and Deliver,” and Lorraine Bracco of “Goodfellas” and later “The Sopranos,” the production of “Talent for the Game” brought much excitement and a brief economic boom to the area, even though it ended up being a flop at the box office (spoiler alert!).
The movie follows Olmos’ character Virgil Sweet, a down-on-his-luck baseball scout looking for fresh talent along the backroads of rural Idaho. When their car breaks down on one lonely gravel road, he and girlfriend Bobbie, played by Bracco, stumble upon a young pitcher with no professional experience and a scorching fastball. Moving from the humble life of a country pastor’s son to the sudden glare of the spotlight in a major league baseball stadium, this is a classic tale of challenge and redemption for the underdog.
One of the most striking aspects of this film is the immediate familiarity of its locations. The opening scene features a heart-stopping ride into the Bunker Hill mine in Kellogg, Idaho, at the bottom of which Virgil tests the arm of a young miner/pro-baseball hopeful; in the background stands another young man in a University of Idaho sweatshirt. A few minutes later, Sweet talks on a payphone in front of a building bearing the name “Fighting Creek Chamber of Commerce.” This may be recognizable to those familiar with the Worley, Idaho, area and the Fightin’ Creek Tavern, where this “Chamber of Commerce” building was actually a two-holer outhouse that also served as the "mayor’s office."
Then there are the rolling hills of the Palouse, scenery so iconic and recognizable it’s almost a character itself. While in the movie, the young pitcher, Sammy Bodeen, is said to have been discovered in Genesee, the fictional version of the town was created by combining locations from both Genesee and Garfield, Washington. In a demonstration of movie magic, the baseball field in Genesee and several areas of downtown are prominent features, while the “nearby” Bodeen family home and business are actually in Garfield.
A number of locals were hired as actors in the film, working as baseball players and extras in the background, as well as in some small speaking parts. Casting calls in Coeur d’Alene and Genesee brought hundreds of hopefuls from near and far. At the call held in the Coeur d’Alene Resort, a 12-year-old girl came all the way from Calgary to follow her acting dreams, saying, “For all I care, they don’t even have to pay me. I just want to be an actress when I grow up.” In Genesee, organizers expected about 200 people to try out for 150 available roles but were shocked when over 1000 showed up – at the time the entire population of Genesee was just over 700.
Of course, it seems impossible that a production of this size and scope could sweep into a small town without causing some controversy. In the days following the casting call, the Idahonian and Lewiston Morning Tribune printed letters to the editor describing a perceived bias in how actors were cast. Specifically, that the mayor’s wife was deciding who got to audition, based on her “favorites,” rather than being chosen by the studio’s regular talent scouts. Whether this was true or not seems to depend on who was asked, although an Idahonian editorial claimed that the Latah County sheriff’s deputies who were on-duty at the event were concerned that the crowd could “turn ugly” over the situation.
With casting done and locations chosen, there was still more behind-the-scenes work to be done before filming could begin. The location for the Bodeen family home in Garfield had been chosen because of its proximity to the Garfield Community Church, which for the movie was retitled the Genesee Community Church where Sammy Bodeen’s father is the minister. The home itself was transformed, right down to the door frames, into the parsonage of a devout Christian family, and the homeowner told the Idahonian that while most of the furniture wasn’t hers, she would get to keep the new wallpaper and carpet. On Main Street, an abandoned garage was painted with a weathered sign saying “Bodeen’s Diesel Service” to represent the family’s mechanics shop (conveniently available to fix Virgil’s broken-down car).
Over the state line in Genesee, construction crews worked to refine certain details to match the town to the script. Two men gave the baseball field’s grandstand a new coat of blue paint and painted the high school’s Bulldog mascot on the side. A surrounding wheatfield was seen as such a perfect backdrop to the shot that filmmakers asked the farmer not to harvest it until after shooting was finished, offering to pay him for any loss to his crop in the meantime. Just outside town, crews had identified a large barn to use in one particular scene; however, that scene also called for another, smaller barn next to it. So they built a little barn, “no problem,” according to the construction coordinator, Jim Ondrejko.
Area businesses lauded the arrival of the movie crews and the money they brought into each community. At the University Inn – Best Western in Moscow, the cast and crew were housed in 60 rooms for ten days, with a smaller group staying a week longer, bringing in a substantial sum to the hotel during a normally slow time of year. Individuals working on the movie sets regularly dispersed through each town, buying lunch or dinner and drinks at local cafes and restaurants, trinkets and gifts in antique shops, and two crew women caused a bit of a sensation by spending $700 at a Genesee flower shop. Two 8-year-old boys also got into the entrepreneurial spirit, dragging a homemade cart to the Genesee ballfield where they sold lemonade and iced tea to spectators watching a rehearsal from the newly-painted grandstand.
An article in the Idahonian following the film’s completion said that, between the personal expenditures of those involved with the movie and cost of construction supplies and various rentals, the production spent about $1 million around the region. Peg Crist of the film bureau at the Idaho Department of Commerce pointed out that this probably worked out to $3-4 million due to the “multiplier effect,” where each dollar spent in a community continues to be spent many times over from one consumer to another.
In addition to the economic boon, residents were pleasantly surprised by the movie’s stars, specifically leading man Edward James Olmos. A number of people were quoted in news articles as being impressed with how personable he was, soft-spoken but confident, and how he seemed to be genuinely interested in their lives. One Genesee resident told the Lewiston Morning Tribune, “I thought he was better-looking in real life than he does on TV.” In a grocery store in Garfield, Olmos bought a T-shirt from a fundraiser for the Garfield-Palouse High School and wore it regularly, much to the delight of locals. In turn, Olmos was just as impressed by the Palouse. He told one reporter, after admitting that he’d never been to the state, “you hear about Idaho – you think potatoes. You don’t hear about these beautiful wheat fields and warm weather.”
Upon the film’s release in the spring of 1991, it quietly tanked. A local review of the movie in the Idahonian stated, “It’s got great scenery, but a bush-league plot,” while another critic said, “This is a nice movie. Too nice for its own good, probably, but nice nonetheless.” A special opening weekend run at the University 4 Theater in Moscow only saw 223 paying customers. Pam Crist of the Idaho Department of Commerce surmised that the producers were not promoting the movie as they normally would and, after it grossed only $62,500 in its initial 60 theater run nationwide, it would quickly be released straight to VHS. The final worldwide gross for its theatrical run was $336,396 - especially disappointing for a film with a reported $15 million budget.
“Talent for the Game” didn’t become a major box office smash, and opinions will of course differ on whether it’s an enjoyable diversion or a silly waste of time. Regardless, 35 years later, it is still a charming and picturesque glimpse of life on the Palouse, and holds some special memories for those who remember when Hollywood came to our little towns.
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