Frederick Manfred's book makes it big on the small screen

Frederick Manfred '34

A long-time dream of the late Frederick Manfred '34 is finally coming true: One of his books is being made into a movie.

His 1957 novel Riders of Judgment has been adapted by Dianna Ossana Larry McMurtry, who is well known for his stories of the old West, into the Hallmark television movie Johnson County War. The film, starring Burt Reynolds, Tom Berenger and Luke Perry, tells the tale of three brothers caught in the middle of a war between homestead ranchers and cattle barons in 1891 Wyoming. No airdate has been set yet.

Manfred was always trying to peddle his best-selling books into theaters or onto television, said Ben Vander Kooi '75, the Manfred family attorney and literary executor of the Frederick Manfred Literary Committee. A few of the novels had been optioned for film, but none made it to production until now.

Ben Vander Kooi '75

Executive producer Larry Levinson came to Vander Kooi "out of the blue" about five years ago asking for rights to Riders of Judgment. The option date for filming came and went, however, "so we figured something had happened and we were basically out of luck," Vander Kooi said. About six months later, Levinson called back, apologized, and renegotiated an 18-month option in the fall of 2000.

"Nothing happened until about a year ago," Vander Kooi remembered. "Then I got a fax from the accountants saying they wanted to start filming"—soon.

Fred Manfred, Jr. on the set in Calgary

Vander Kooi, Fred Manfred, Jr. and Freya Manfred Pope spent a few days in the Canadian Rockies outside Calgary watching filming on the set McMurtry used to shoot Lonesome Dove.

From what he's seen, Vander Kooi said, "It holds pretty true to the book itself, but I'm going to reserve judgment."

Vander Kooi is working to get Manfred's books No Fun on Sunday and Lord Grizzly made into movies, too, but he's always got a project on the front burner.

"I'm continually amazed at the variety and creativity of people who make requests" to use Manfred's work, he said. Recently, a local composer put together some songs using some of Manfred's words as lyrics. There are about a half-dozen unpublished works that the Manfred family wants printed. A psychologist on the east coast is working on a scholarly paper based on one of Manfred's journals, discovered posthumously, called "Dreams Remembered the Next Day." And the 800-page Manfred Reader was released four years ago in hopes of sparking a renewed interest in the Minnesota author.

"Some people characterize him as a regional writer," Vander Kooi said. "But (author) Robert Bly said he's a regional writer in the way William Faulkner was—he took an area and worked with it." Much of Manfred's work is set in Siouxland, which covers the northern Plains states—mostly South Dakota, southern Minnesota and the area of Manfred's boyhood home in Doon, Iowa.

"Manfred outlived a number of editors," Vander Kooi added, "and blamed the inability to get manuscripts published for a time on increasing East Coast focus in the publishing industry."

Manfred built an estate in 1959 near Luverne, Minn., on the southern edge of the Blue Mounds, a unique geographic feature that rises above the prairie about 500 feet. His house now is an interpretive center and part of Blue Mounds State Park. The home also hosts the annual Blue Mound Writers Series for local authors.