HOLLYWOOD -- Alan Alda put the boot to the Stampede.

Best-remembered for TV's M*A*S*H, Alda was in the city last summer filming Resurrecting The Champ with Samuel L. Jackson and Josh Hartnett.

"Calgary was a very strange town," Alda said. "We were filming there during their rodeo -- what do they call it? -- the Stampede. I was surprised there were a million people in Calgary -- and every one of them dressed up like a cowboy .... You'd turn on the news -- this lasted for 10 days -- and there they are in cowboy shirts telling you how many people died in Iraq. That was the strangest thing I ever saw. And then in the evening, you could watch them torturing little calves, grabbing and throwing them on the ground ... And then they give them prizes for that."

Hartnett had kinder words.

He didn't see much of Calgary because of the work schedule, but said he enjoyed Banff and Lake Louise.

He said Stampede revellers sometimes drowned out dialogue on the set.

"There were some surprisingly sketchy neighbourhoods in Calgary. At night, it got a little colourful," he said.