LAKE TAHOE, Nev./Calif. – Forty-five years after a complex bomb was planted at Harvey’s Resort Hotel and Casino in Stateline, Nevada, a new documentary is bringing one of the most extraordinary crimes in Lake Tahoe history to the big screen.
On Wednesday, Aug. 26, Tahoe Art Haus & Cinema in Tahoe City will host a special anniversary screening of I Got Bombed at Harvey’s, a documentary that revisits the events surrounding the infamous 1980 extortion attempt.
The bomb was planted at Harvey’s on Aug. 26, 1980. The next day, on Aug. 27, the device exploded during an attempt to remove it. The elaborate bomb contained more than 1,000 pounds of dynamite, and the criminals demanded a $3 million ransom. The case sparked one of the largest manhunts in FBI history.
Directed by Amy Bandlien Storkel and Bryan Storkel, I Got Bombed at Harvey’s combines archival footage, firsthand interviews and investigative storytelling to examine the crime and the surprising story behind it.
The Emmy-winning husband-and-wife filmmaking team, along with their nonfiction production company Sidestilt Films, are best known for The Pez Outlaw, which won a Special Jury Prize at the 2022 SXSW Film Festival. The couple also won two Emmys for the film.
I Got Bombed at Harvey’s represents a new experience for the filmmakers: bringing a documentary to the place where the events actually unfolded, and doing so around the anniversary of the bombing.
Among the experiences that stood out for the filmmakers was speaking with the head of the FBI’s bomb squad and seeing an actual replica of the massive extortion device. A recreation of the bomb is maintained by the FBI and has been used for training, offering investigators and bomb technicians an opportunity to study one of the most unusual explosive devices in the bureau’s history.
“We’d heard about the story for so long, and then all of a sudden you see things in real life and you’re like, ‘Oh, that really did happen.'” Bryan Storkel said.
The timing of the screening also gives local audiences an opportunity to revisit an event that has remained part of Tahoe’s history for generations. The 1980 bombing has continued to fascinate investigators, historians and residents because of the sheer complexity of the device, the audacity of the extortion attempt and the extraordinary investigation that followed.
For the Storkels, however, the anniversary screening marks a different stage in the filmmaking process; the moment when a yearslong project finally reaches an audience.
“There is so much that happens before you make the movie, there’s so much that happens after it, but this is kind of the fun part where we get to just let people see it on a big screen,” Bryan Storkel said.
I Got Bombed at Harvey’s will screen Wednesday, Aug. 26, at 5 p.m. at Tahoe Art Haus & Cinema in Tahoe City. The screening will be followed up with a Q&A with filmmakers and special guest from the FBI and the bomb technician who worked on the case.
