Oklahoma-made film telling hidden histories of some famously patriotic Americans, opens Thursday

A locally produced movie described as patriotic, not political, opens at roughly a thousand movie theaters Thursday night, and will run for a week.

Oklahoma-based Impact Productions and Mike Rowe Works collaborated on the film, which director Jonathan Coussens describes to KRMG as a Paul Harvey style telling of hidden histories involving some well-known Americans.

For ‘Something to Stand For‘, Mike Rowe of “Dirty Jobs” fame takes a field trip to Washington, D.C. in his beat up old Ford Bronco, providing the narrative framework for the nine stories related in the film.

Coussens tells KRMG that the cast and crew, excluding Rowe, are all Oklahomans and the vast majority of the film was shot here in the state - much of it in the Tulsa metro.

“We shot Iwo Jima out at Chandler Park right here in Tulsa,” Coussens said. “And then we went over to Lake Keystone and shot some beach scenes, where we dressed it up and put some palm trees in the sand at Lake Keystone.”

“There’s great movie-making talent here in the state,” he added, “and I’m just proud to be a part of it.”

Coussens stressed that financial assistance from the Oklahoma Film Commission was key to completing the project, which he says spent some $10 million in the state over the course of three years in production.

‘Something to Stand For’ has a limited run in theaters, it’s currently scheduled for June 27th through July 4th, timing that was chosen quite deliberately.

“If you want to see movies that celebrate the values and traditions of what we hold dear, you’ve gotta vote with your dollars,” Coussens told KRMG. “This is one of those movies that I guarantee will leave you smiling, leave you happy - maybe even shed a little tear through it, but it’ll definitely leave you reflecting on what it means to be an American, and how grateful we should be.”

Regardless, he says, of one’s political stance.

“It’s not in any way a political film, it’s a patriotic movie,” he told KRMG. “Hopefully it really unites people in a time when we’re so divided.”