Henry Winkler, at the height of his Happy Days popularity, and Sally Field, who had recently completed her final descent as The Flying Nun, came to Petaluma in 1977 to star in an innocuous little film called Heroes. Strangely, their then-unknown co-star Harrison Ford went on to become a star of at least equal stature to Field. At the time, Ford was about to explode into the public's consciousness with the release of Star Wars, another film of 1977.
Heroes is the story of Winkler, a crazy war veteran who leaves New York on a cross country trip to Eureka, California, where he plans to start a worm farm. On the bus ride west he meets Field, who joins Winkler in a visit to Sedalia, Missouri to meet Ford, one of the partners in the farm. The Sedalia bus depot is in reality the old bus depot in Petaluma (pictured at top, and how it looks today in the second photo) at the corner of Fourth and C Streets. The location now serves as The Mail Depot. The picture below shows the Field-Winkler-Ford trio driving in Ford's orange Camaro up Western Avenue.
As the story progresses, Winkler and Field visit the family of a deceased friend at a Petaluma house located at 515 Walnut Street. Winkler goes berserk in a case of post-traumatic stress disorder, stumbles down the front steps and onto Kentucky Street in downtown Petaluma. Thinking he is back in Vietnam, Winkler experiences a series of explosive warfare scenes on Western Avenue on the same block which has provided the backdrop for five films, most recently Inventing the Abbotts. There is also a short scene at the D Street Bridge which crosses over the Petaluma River.
And there you have it. Heroes
has all the makings of a 1970s ABC made for TV movie, complete
with wardrobe and soundtrack. Roger Ebert didn't review this
film, so one would naturally guess that Heroes
may not have been a candidate for a thumbs up. What this
film missed in critical acclaim it made up for in star value, so
I'd give it a rating of 
. Heroes is rated PG and is
113 minutes in length. It's not an easy one to find on video. In
Petaluma it's available at Hollywood Video.