Nogales, Arizona - Depiction in Media

Depiction in Media

Nogales, Arizona, was the filming location for the motion picture version of the musical, Oklahoma!. Nogales was chosen because it looked more like turn-of-the-century Oklahoma (when the musical is set) than anywhere in Oklahoma did in 1955, when the film was made. It was made an "honorary" part of the state of Oklahoma for the duration of the film shoot by order of the governor of Arizona.

A small part of William Gibson's The Gernsback Continuum short story refers to the city of Nogales. Also, the 1951 biblical motion picture David and Bathsheba was filmed here. Nogales was mentioned as a border crossing point in Carlos Castaneda's "Don Juan" series, and a gateway into the Mexican Yaqui communities of Sonora. Nogales is also mentioned in Men in Black, in the film The Losers and recently in a PlayStation 3 video game advertisement: MAG. Massive Action Game. Nogales is a locale for filming some of the TV reality documentary, "Border Wars". Nogales is discussed in Season 1, Episode 2 in detail (as it relates to the subject matter of the show). Recently released Animal Planet TV reality show "Law on the Border" was filmed in Nogales highlighting the K-9 units of the Nogales Police Department.

Nogales was also the main location site for the 1995 film version of THE FANTASTICKS, the longest running off-Broadway musical. Certain scenes in THE FANTASTICKS also used corn stalks that were similarly grown with a special speed-up process for the movie version of OKLAHOMA! filmed in the area some 40 years earlier. The "special" corn used in both films was engineered by the Agriculture Department of the University of Arizona.

Much of the sensationalized media depicting Nogales as unsafe is due to its border location and the political importance it plays in the national immigration debate. Nogales remains a very safe community with crime rates comparable or lower than those of other communities throughout the State of Arizona.