Las Cruces library to screen rare regional Western and preview new documentary

Julia Smith to present “Birth of the Acid Western” and introduce restored 1966 film “The Devil’s Mistress”

Organ Mountain News report

LAS CRUCES - The Las Cruces Public Libraries will host a special screening and documentary preview on Saturday, June 21, exploring the legacy of New Mexico’s earliest regional Western film.

Beginning at 3:30 p.m. at Thomas Branigan Memorial Library, film scholar Julia Smith will introduce The Devil’s Mistress, a 1966 feature written and directed by former NMSU professor Orville Wanzer. It was the first feature film shot in the Las Cruces area — and one of the first independent films from the region to secure a Hollywood release.

Smith, who has researched and restored Wanzer’s film archive since 2019, will also present the trailer for her new documentary Birth of the Acid Western, which traces Wanzer’s work and the genre’s influence on countercultural cinema in the 1960s and ’70s. A Q&A with Smith will follow the screening.

The program is free to attend and sponsored by the Friends of Thomas Branigan Memorial Library.

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