Dumb Luck

There are stories about people living. There are stories about people after they die. Dumb Luck tells the unlikely but true story of the life and afterlife of poor Elmer McCurdy, a small-time Wild West outlaw. Despite his love for LuluMae and a promise to do right by her, Elmer embarks on a highly unsuccessful career as an outlaw until he’s shot by a sheriff’s posse in 1911.

Elmer’s body is “preserved” by a funeral director in Oklahoma and becomes a local tourist attraction. As a result, Elmer can’t move on from Limbo to his final destination because his body hasn’t been properly buried. For another 66 years, his body is a fixture of carnival sideshows, movies, and road races. In 1976, the crew of The Six Million Dollar Man discovers Elmer’s body in the Laff in the Dark funhouse in a California amusement park, and the Los Angeles coroner uncovers Elmer’s amazing post-death journey. Due to the publicity, the people of Guthrie, Oklahoma, pay to have Elmer transported and buried in the Boot Hill section of their cemetery in 1977.

Will Elmer’s burial be in time to reunite him with LuluMae, who has scorned him for his deeds? Can love triumph decades after a person’s death?