Tulsan Completes Restoration of Famous 1967 'Bigfoot' Film
Frame 352 from the historic 1967 Patterson-Gimlin Film, showing the unidentified, humanlike figure known as Sasquatch or Bigfoot walking through the Bluff Creek area of Northern California.
Brief introduction: Gatewood owns a unique place in Tulsa film history. He was Matt Dillon's stand-in during the making of three shot-in-Tulsa motion pictures ("Tex," "The Outsiders," "Rumble Fish") that were adapted from novels by Tulsa author S.E. Hinton.
That was then. This is now:
Gatewood announced that he has completed a new restoration of the historic Patterson-Gimlin Film.
Shot by Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin in 1967, a one-minute film sequence shows an unidentified, human-like figure moving through the Bluff Creek area of Northern California. The figure was purported to be a Sasquatch or Bigfoot-type creature.
The Patterson-Gimlin Film has remained at the center of decades of scientific, photographic and cultural research.
Gatewood indicated in a news release that his restoration will bring renewed attention to “one of the most examined pieces of motion-picture footage in modern history.”
The new version of the film will be released Oct. 20, arriving on the 59th anniversary of the day the footage was allegedly captured.
The restoration project was undertaken by Gatewood, a born-and-raised Tulsan who has spent years extensively working with the surviving film imagery and historical material associated with the Patterson-Gimlin Film.
The release said Gatewood's restoration focuses on preserving and presenting the original photographic film. The project involved, for the first time, working from high-resolution scans of the original 16mm Kodachrome II color film and carefully reconstructing imagery for contemporary viewing.
“This isn't about creating a new version of the film,” Gatewood said. “It's about historically preserving what was actually recorded to museum-quality standards and giving people the opportunity to examine the footage while respecting the original photographic material.”
Gatewood, asked what drew him to the project, said: “I grew up looking at this image and, as I saw different ones, I knew there was something better. The film is important in establishing Native American truths about a people that were hunted by the U.S. government, just like Indigenous people in America were.”
The completed restoration is part of a documentary ("Bigfoot Revealed: The Unseen Patterson-Gimlin Film”) that is being prepared for distribution — initially through Vimeo and subsequently through all major streaming platforms.
The project recognizes individuals whose work and contributions have been central to the film's history, including Patterson, Gimlin, researcher Bill Munns and others “whose extensive analysis and documentation have contributed to the continuing study of the footage.”
Real? Hoax? That's what people have long been asking about the Patterson-Gimlin Film.
Patterson, who died in 1972, maintained during his lifetime that the footage showed an actual Bigfoot-type creature rather than a man in a shaggy costume. Gimlin said this during a 2020 KNKX Public Radio interview: “I strongly believe that if a real (Bigfoot) walked in the house and sat down at a table — or, the best it could — they’d say 'No, it’s a fake. It’s somebody in a suit.' That’s how naive they are. So that’s just the way I’d tell them until the day they spank me in the face with dirt.”
Todd Gatewood
Hot Weather Films
1967bluffcreek.com
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