Tulsa

Tulsa is a 1949 American Western action film starring Susan Hayward and Robert Preston and featuring Lloyd Gough, Chill Wills (as the narrator), and Ed Begley. The film centers around greed, conservation and romance, and was nominated for an Oscar for it's special effects. The background of this story takes place in Tulsa, Oklahoma during the oil boom of the 1920's with the accumulation of wealth and power which can corrupt moral character. Rancher Nelse Lansing is killed by an oil well blowout while visiting a well operated by Tanner Petroleum. He was there to report that pollution from the oil production has killed some of his cattle. Lansing's daughter, Cherokee (Susan Hayward) acquires the drilling rights and meets Brad Brady, (Robert Preston), a geologist who wants the oil drillers to limit their drilling in order to minimize oil field depletion and to preserve the area's grasslands. A fire in a derrick tailing pool is started by Jim Redbird (Pedro Armendariz), a Cherokee who had been made a rich owner of oil land through crooked dealings with oilmen. The fire results in an extravagant fire scene for which the movie got it's Oscar nomination for special effects. This is a great Western peppered with human emotion and the love of the environment. A very timely movie in the environmentally conscious time in which we live! (84 minutes - 1949 - Color - 4:3).