Iverson Movie Ranch

Another look at the 1952 aerial photo of Iverson

2012-02-04T15:04:00.000-08:00

This is an update on an old blog entry, which you can still see by clicking here, in which I posted about the 1952 aerial photograph of Chatsworth that includes the Iverson Movie Ranch.

I hope the version above expands on what I posted previously. The above photo is essentially the same 1952 aerial photo used as the basis for the earlier post, but the scope is wider here, and additionally some of the features may be more clear here. (Please click on the photo to enlarge it, or you probably still won't be able to get much detail.) The earlier post is still worth checking out, especially for the Lower Iverson features that have been labeled by Iverson researcher John Emmons.

The area shown in the above "aerial map" includes all of the Iverson Movie Ranch, along with the neighboring Brandeis Ranch — which was also a filming location, although not nearly as widely used as Iverson. In the above shot, Brandeis is essentially the flat area in the top left corner, with its eastern boundary identified by a line of trees (a dark vertical line on the aerial map). This line of trees borders the Upper Iverson, and is a common feature in the backgrounds of movies and TV shows shot at Iverson.

To my eye the shape of Brandeis Ranch resembles the state of Montana, upside-down. Maybe you can see what I mean in the above upside-down map of Montana.

The shot at the top of this post also shows some of the San Fernando Valley farmland that still existed in Chatsworth as of 1952, in the bottom right corner. This farmland can sometimes be spotted in productions, especially in the background of shots of the Iverson Gorge.

In the aerial above, you may also notice Santa Susana Pass Road, the winding, roughly horizontal (east-west) road about one-third of the way up from the bottom of the shot, which formed the southern boundary of Iverson. A switchback marks the eastern end of Santa Susana Pass, and to the immediate southeast of that switchback is Stoney Point.

Here's a zoomed-in version of the aerial map at the top of the post. What's shown here is essentially the Iverson Movie Ranch, as of 1952 — still pretty much at the height of its use as a movie location. It's only by luck that we happen to have a 1952 map — I'm not sure why it happened then, but I assume it was part of a government project, perhaps associated with the U.S. Geological Survey, and if I know anything about the geopolitical situation at that time (which I don't), it was probably related to the Cold War and national security. But whatever the reasons, we have been handed down a timely and useful aerial view of the Iverson Movie Ranch in 1952. (I would love to have something similar from circa 1937 or 1944 ... but that's just my little fantasy.)

As it turns out, 1952 is a pretty good point in time to get a snapshot of Iverson. By 1952 much of Hollywood's focus was already shifting from movies — particularly the B-movies that had been Iverson's bread-and-butter up to that point — to the fledgling TV business. The early TV series, especially the Westerns — starting with "The Lone Ranger" in 1949 — ensured that Iverson remained an important extension of Hollywood and a busy hub of the entertainment industry for at least the next decade.

This is just one of the highlights of the 1952 aerial shot. As of 1952, Iverson's Western street — often called Iverson Village or El Paso Street — was in place and in wide use, after having been built in 1945 for Gary Cooper's "Along Came Jones." Above is an even more zoomed-in (and darker) version of the 1952 aerial focused on the Sheep Flats area where the town was built. The aerial doesn't blow up much better than this, but you should be able to make out the Western street near the bottom of the shot, about one-third of the way in from the left edge of the photo. The flat area that makes up much of the middle of the shot is Sheep Flats, also called Indian Hills — and this whole flat area, including where the town once stood, is now the site of the Indian Hills Mobile Home Village. Almost at the center of the photo above is a large tree all by itself. Under this tree could be found (and can still be found) Center Rock, an especially charismatic and important Iverson movie rock that has been featured in other posts.

James Dean's connection to the IversonMovie Ranch — and the tomb of Jesus

2012-01-23T22:17:00.000-08:00

James Dean

This discovery took a fair amount of work and a lot of luck, but I was able to unearth the tantalizing fact that James Dean's first screen credit was in a production that brought him to Iverson. And if that weren't enough, the tomb of Jesus is depicted in the production — and it turns out it's at Iverson too!

The production was an hour drama called "Hill Number One." Don't expect to see any sharp, clear screen shots of Jimmy scrambling among the Iverson rocks with a six-shooter. This isn't that kind of discovery. But it's a story I think is pretty fascinating anyway, going back to the early days of television and the early days of Dean's career, which came together in 1951.

The occasion was an episode of a relatively unknown TV anthology series called "Family Theatre," which had a long run on TV in the 1950s. The series was a Christian-oriented production of the Family Rosary Crusade, under the stewardship of Father Patrick Peyton. (Peyton is often credited as the guy who came up with the slogan "The family that prays together stays together," and he delivers it at the end of the episode.) The "Family Theater" series started on radio in 1947 and apparently moved to TV in 1951 — with a minor spelling change, from "Theater" to "Theatre" — and then remained on the air through 1957. According to some accounts, the series produced something like 540 episodes — a total that would rank it among the most prolific TV shows in history.

The bulk of the material in these productions appears to have disappeared, or at least is out of circulation. But a select few episodes — notably the one with James Dean, Iverson and the tomb of Jesus — appear to have made it to DVD. Additionally, some of the radio episodes reportedly still get aired on the EWTN Radio Network. "Hill Number One," probably the most widely distributed of the vintage episodes, has a DVD cover, seen above, that depicts a scene shot at Iverson, with three crosses on a hill representing Calvary, or Golgotha. The key word there is "depicts," as this cover shot is not an actual shot of Iverson.

Here's the equivalent shot from the production itself, showing Calvary soon after the crucifixion. The shot first appears about 22 minutes into the hourlong episode, and this is the first Iverson I was able to identify in the show. The actual hill is a relatively nondescript one at Iverson, just east of Nyoka Cliff.

It gets more interesting when the camera pans right, revealing a familiar rock I call Jaunty Sailor, which I've blogged about before in an entry you can find here. Jaunty Sailor is the large vertical rock just right of center, and while it's a little hard to make out here (you can click on the photo to enlarge it), some movie construction has been attached to its right side — its eastern side at the location. It turns out this is the tomb where the body of Jesus was placed after he was removed from the cross. (In the show, not in real life ... just in case that needs to be said.)

The tomb of Jesus, in "Hill Number One"

Here's a closer look at the tomb of Jesus, as it was constructed for the production, complete with the large round stone meant to ensure that the body stayed put. You can see a little bit of Jaunty Sailor to the left, jutting out next to the tomb entrance.

James Dean as John the Apostle in "Hill Number One"

James Dean plays John the Apostle — a role that has sometimes been reported in error as John the Baptist. It's a small role, but Dean is easy to spot even in a cast that includes a surprising number of familiar names — Roddy McDowall, William Shallert, Michael Ansara and others. Dean's role has sometimes been described as non-speaking, but that's another erroneous report. He has a number of lines, including a brief speech at a meeting of the disciples, seen in the above shot. It's not much, but it's the start of what turned out to be his lasting screen legacy.

The production gives us a good look at a young James Dean — about four years before his breakout and only 19 or 20 years old. (Even though he would play a high school student a few years later in the 1955 movie "Rebel Without a Cause," Dean was already 24 years old when that movie was being made.)

Here's the first appearance of James Dean at Iverson, second from the right, with Ruth Hussey as Mary, Regis Toomey as Nicodemus, next to Dean, and Nelson Leigh as Joseph of Arimathea on the left. The scene takes place at the tomb of Jesus, located a short distance east of Nyoka Cliff.

Another shot of James Dean at work at Iverson. That's Dean as John the Apostle on the right, with Charles Meredith as Peter on the left. The disciples have just received word of the Resurrection, and John is examining the stone that was supposed to keep the body of Christ in the tomb.

Peter and John look over the empty veil that was previously wrapped around Jesus' head — prompting John to grasp what has happened and go forth to spread the message: "He has risen as he promised."

Family Theater Productions still exists, and apparently still has some of the vintage productions for sale on its website (familytheater.org). I couldn't find "Hill Number One" on the site, but it's available on Amazon and other sites. (You can find it by clicking on the ad below.)

What was the director of "Casablanca"doing at the Iverson Movie Ranch?

2012-01-22T02:33:00.000-08:00

Michael Curtiz

One of the most acclaimed directors of Hollywood's Golden Age — and the director of the movie that many film lovers call the best of all time — Michael Curtiz had a history at Iverson. While he didn't shoot "Casablanca" at the ranch, he visited Chatsworth on a number of occasions to add Iverson's dramatic backdrops to his movies.

"Noah's Ark," 1928

Curtiz directed for years in his native Hungary in the silent era before relocating to the U.S. in 1926. One of his first Hollywood projects, the silent biblical epic "Noah's Ark," produced the iconic special-effects shot seen above, in which the massive Ark is "beached" on the familiar rocks of Iverson's Garden of the Gods — notably Tower Rock and Sphinx, sometimes called Indian Head and Eagle Beak. Curtiz collaborated with legendary studio mogul Darryl F. Zanuck on the movie, which starred a lineup of silent era A-listers including Dolores Costello, George O'Brien, Noah Beery and Myrna Loy.

Here's a contemporary shot of the same rocks, with the view from this angle now largely blocked by trees. That's Tower Rock on the left (also known as Indian Head) and Sphinx on the right (also known as Eagle Beak).

Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in "Casablanca"

Curtiz went on to direct a string of cinema classics in the 1930s and early 1940s, being nominated for an Academy Award for "Captain Blood" (1935) — a write-in nomination, leading to a second-place finish in the voting for the Oscar — receiving two nominations for best director in one year for the 1938 movies "Four Daughters" and "Angels With Dirty Faces" and chalking up still another nomination for best director for "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (1942) before winning the Academy Award for his masterpiece, "Casablanca" (1942).

Joan Crawford in "Mildred Pierce"

Notoriously caustic toward actors, Curtiz nonetheless worked with the best in the business. Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, John Garfield, Ann Blyth, William Powell, Paul Muni, Eve Arden and Claude Rains all received Oscar nominations for their work in Michael Curtiz movies, while James Cagney ("Yankee Doodle Dandy," 1942) and Joan Crawford ("Mildred Pierce," 1945) picked up statuettes. The list of Hollywood legends he directed is too long to do it justice, but it also includes Bette Davis, Al Jolson, Elizabeth Taylor, Edward G. Robinson, Sophia Loren, Bing Crosby, Alan Ladd, Patricia Neal and Robert Taylor, among many others.

Curtiz even worked with the King, directing Elvis in "King Creole" in 1958. This one wasn't shot at Iverson, but Elvis did shoot one movie there — "Harum Scarum" in 1965.

For the 1936 war movie "Charge of the Light Brigade," one of a number of Michael Curtiz films that paired Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, Curtiz staged battle scenes in Iverson's Upper Gorge. In the above screen shot from the movie, warriors are gathered atop The Wall, and in particular Potato Rock, the boulder at the right. These rocks no longer exist, having been destroyed to make way for condos.

Another group of combatants in "Charge of the Light Brigade" is set up nearby, with the group at the top of the shot seated on Three Ages Rock. This rock has survived condo development and can still be seen today — although the section in the foreground, where the shooter is carefully aiming his rifle, has been blown away.

"Charge of the Light Brigade" was one in a series of Michael Curtiz movies that paired Olivia de Havilland and Errol Flynn. Others included "Captain Blood" (1935), "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938), "Essex and Elizabeth" (1939) and "Dodge City" (1939).

Curtiz knocked out a few Westerns toward the end of his career, including "The Proud Rebel" in 1958, with de Havilland again and Alan Ladd, and "The Hangman" in 1959, featuring a cast of now familiar TV names such as Tina Louise ("Gilligan's Island"), Fess Parker ("Davy Crockett") and Jack Lord ("Hawaii Five-0"). His final film was another Western — "The Comancheros" (1961), starring John Wayne. Six months after its release, on April 10, 1962, Michael Curtiz died of cancer in Hollywood at age 75.

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How the Iverson Movie Ranch found its wayinto a 1998 Neil Finn video

2012-01-15T17:30:00.000-08:00

This 1998 video for the song "She Will Have Her Way," by New Zealand rocker Neil Finn, is a parody of the old "rampaging enormous women" movies, including the 1959 Lou Costello comedy/sci-fi movie "The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock," much of which was shot at Iverson.

"Candy Rock" was itself a parody of the much more famous sci-fi movie "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman," which came out the previous year. "50 Foot Woman" was not shot at Iverson.

Neil Finn and his 30- to 50-foot girlfriend,

in the music video "She Will Have Her Way"

Neil Finn is known for fronting the bands Split Enz and Crowded House, along with his solo career. This solo video includes footage from both "30 Foot Bride" and "50 Foot Woman," cleverly blending original clips from both films with new footage featuring Finn and his own 30-foot (or 50-foot) girlfriend.

Best of all, from the standpoint of an Iverson Movie Ranch aficionado, the video creates "new" footage shot at Iverson by superimposing Finn and his video girlfriend over scenes originally shot at Iverson in the 1950s. The barn seen here no longer exists — it has been borrowed from "30 Foot Bride," with Finn's modern-day video vixen seen running in front of it using composite imaging.

Here's a shot I really like from the video, which is lifted straight from the movie. It shows a truck hauling the wrapped-up "30 Foot Bride" past a distinctive formation I call Rock Island, which was located in the Iverson Gorge and had high-profile appearances in John Wayne's "Fighting Seabees" (1944) and many other productions. The shot is flipped horizontally, for whatever reasons. (For more about flipping shots, click here.)

This is how the above shot "should" look — and how it would have looked if it hadn't been flipped in production. It was flipped for both the movie, "30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock," and the music video, Neil Finn's "She Will Have Her Way." The big cluster of boulders seen in the shot, Rock Island, effectively no longer exists, having been mostly buried during grading for condominium development. In other words, it's probably still intact, just underground. Parts of it — maybe the top one-third — remain above ground but are barely visible and hard to get to.

The barn featured in "30 Foot Bride" and in the video is the Fury Barn, which was part of a ranch set built for the TV show "Fury" that got a lot of use in movies and TV shows in the late '50s and throughout the '60s. The barn and the rest of the set are believed to have burned down in the big 1970 Newhall/Malibu fire.

An intimate moment featuring Neil and his big girlfriend creates a reasonable facsimile of the interior of the Fury Barn for the video. I don't know how they got the shot, but I presume it's either a studio set or else filmed in some real barn that's still around today.

As a footnote to the "30 Foot Bride"/"50 Foot Woman" story, a 1993 HBO TV movie remake of "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman," with essentially the same title ("Ft." replaces "Foot"), featuring Daryl Hannah in the title role, is said to include footage shot at one of the estates on the former Upper Iverson, long after the days when the place was a working movie ranch.

"War of the Colossal Beast"

composite shot, filmed partly at Iverson

It's also worth noting the "rampaging enormous men" movies. Probably the best-known entry in this subgenre is "The Amazing Colossal Man" (1957), which pretty much started the whole oversized people phenomenon of the Cold War era. "Colossal Man" was not shot at Iverson — the location work was almost entirely done in Arizona and Nevada, including some iconic shots you may recall of the big guy taking out his hostility on some large neon figures on the Vegas Strip. But "Colossal Man" had a lesser-known sequel, "War of the Colossal Beast" (1958), that not only is a terrific Iverson movie but also is part of an extremely select group of movies to set foot on the iconic Chatsworth rock formation Stoney Point.

Stoney Point in Chatsworth,

seen in "War of the Colossal Beast"

Stoney Point often appears in the background in movies shot at Iverson, but "War of the Colossal Beast" includes footage actually shot at the site.

Oscar Wilde visits the Iverson Movie Ranchand Gorge Arch

2012-01-14T00:22:00.000-08:00

Let's get this much settled right up front: It was a TV version of Oscar Wilde, not the real-life Irish-born playwright and poet. The real Oscar Wilde, who wrote "The Importance of Being Earnest" and "The Picture of Dorian Gray," was a sensation in London in the late 19th century before dying in 1900 — a little too early to make his way into TV or movie productions. But he toured the U.S. in the 1880s, visiting the American West when there still was such a thing, and found his way into a few tidbits of Western lore — drinking whisky with miners in Leadville, Colo., and so forth. Years later, during Hollywood's long love affair with the Wild West, a favorite plot device was to snatch famous visitors to the West from real life and put them in either an exaggerated or completely made-up storyline. Oscar Wilde's turn came around in 1958, and as luck would have it, he had his curtain call at Iverson.

The character Oscar Wilde, played by Australian actor John O'Malley, had a central role in an episode of "Have Gun Will Travel" called "The Ballad of Oscar Wilde," which premiered Dec. 6, 1958. The story had Wilde kidnapped by a bad guy named Rook, played by Jack Hogan, who held Wilde hostage in the Iverson Gorge.

While awaiting his fate, Wilde cooled his heels on a small boulder that was part of one of the Iverson Movie Ranch's legendary rock structures — the Gorge Arch, legendary in large part because it no longer exists, having been replaced by condos. The arch, which consisted mainly of three large boulders, was big enough to ride a horse through, and for a while in the late 1930s and early 1940s it stood next to the Gorge Cabin. In the setting above, the cabin would have been to the right, out of the shot. The two big rocks in the background had a corral and shed in front of them for much of the period that the cabin was in place. But the cabin, corral and shed, along with a fake mine entrance that was often seen in the area, were all long gone by the time "Have Gun Will Travel" came along.

Inevitably, it's the series' hero, Paladin, played by Richard Boone, who rides to Wilde's rescue. At first Paladin, on the right, tries to arrange a prisoner swap, but predictably, he ends up having to shoot it out with Rook.

Rook initially takes cover inside Gorge Arch — giving viewers a rare look at the inside of the arch.

Paladin makes his move, climbing on top of the smaller boulder on the left side of the arch to get the drop on Rook.

Rook slips around to the right side of Gorge Arch, providing an extremely rare detailed view of the huge boulder that makes up that side of the structure.

Wilde, at the left, creates a diversion, enabling Paladin to swoop in for the capture. I'm including this shot mainly because it shows the scale, with Paladin perched on the smaller of the Gorge Arch's two "base" rocks.

With the situation finally under control, Wilde and Paladin find time to exchange a few pithy quips for comic relief. Some things never change.

The real Oscar Wilde

"Platypus Shack" and "Platypus Farm" — one of the Upper Iverson's oddities

2012-01-10T21:21:00.000-08:00

This is a screen shot from the 1949 Paramount Western "El Paso," starring John Payne, Sterling Hayden, Gail Russell and Gabby Hayes, directed by Lewis R. Foster with cinematography by frequent Iverson shooter Ellis W. Carter. It shows a farm set I call "Platypus Farm," after the rock near the left of the shot, Platypus. (I call the rock in the center of the shot "Fish Head.") The farm set was probably built specifically for "El Paso," as the full set has not been spotted anywhere else. It has been suggested that the main house, on the right, may have been a false front or a mobile structure. Either way, by the end of the movie, it's gone.

The main building may have been destroyed in the production, as the house burns to the ground later in the movie. The above shot has the survivors burying two poor souls killed in an attack on the farm, and the charred remains of the house can be seen in the background, behind the rider on the right. It seems unlikely that they would have gone to the lengths of actually destroying a building to get the shot, but who knows? This shot seems to support the theory that the house was just a front and was perhaps designed to ultimately be destroyed on camera. Either way, at least part of the set — the shack, partially visible at the left of both of the above shots — survived and went on to appear in a number of productions, including episodes of the "Lone Ranger" TV show.

Here's "Platypus Shack" again, along with the rock Platypus, in the "Lone Ranger" episode "Barnaby Boggs, Esquire," which premiered Feb. 2, 1950, during the TV show's first season. The shot ran properly oriented in this episode, but in a different episode, the exact same footage was used — but flipped horizontally, as seen below:

This is how the shot ran in the "Man of the House" episode, which aired one week earlier, on Jan. 26, 1950. It may seem like shoddy production to run back-to-back episodes containing such an obvious shortcut — presumably just a way to save money by using the same footage twice. But that sort of thing was common in B-Westerns and carried over into early TV, where the producers were convinced, and probably rightly so, that no one was looking at this stuff very closely. Thankfully, we have DVDs and other digital media now and can really tear it down. (Click here for some additional posts about flipping shots.)

One more "Lone Ranger" shot, back to the "Barnaby Boggs, Esquire" episode, where Platypus Shack ran in its correct orientation. This shot offers a better look at the shack, with the Lone Ranger, played by Clayton Moore, circling around back. The shack stood from about 1949-1952 and appeared in a number of movies, including the Whip Wilson B-Westerns "Gunslingers" and "Silver Raiders" for Monogram (both 1950) and the Rocky Lane B-Western "Marshal of Cedar Rock" for Republic (released in early 1953 but filmed in 1952).

Here's another look at Platypus — the rock, minus the shack — in the slightly upscale Columbia B-Western "The Gun That Won the West" (1955).

And here's a real Platypus. Maybe you can see the resemblance in the bill, which gives the rock its name. I'll take the blame for it.

The 1957 George Montgomery Western "Gun Duel in Durango" provided this unusual shot of Platypus' neighbor to the east, Fish Head, with a couple of sentries on it — including one sitting on its fish lips. As a footnote about Platypus and Fish Head, I believe both of these distinctive and heavily filmed rocks have survived, although I've never seen them in person. If they do still exist, they're "living" in someone's back yard on the former Upper Iverson Movie Ranch.

Spahn Movie Ranch, as seenfrom the Iverson Movie Ranch

2012-01-08T14:46:00.000-08:00

This little cluster of buildings in the background caught my eye during a scan of a "Have Gun Will Travel" episode, and after some detective work I figured out that it was part of the Spahn Movie Ranch. The episode is "Show of Force," which first aired Nov. 9, 1957, and the shot is taken from the Iverson Movie Ranch, shooting toward the west, probably along the western edge of Garden of the Gods.

The buildings seen just to the left of center in the photo were located in the northeast corner of the Spahn Ranch property, on the south side of Santa Susana Pass Road, which can't be seen in the photo. These buildings and the rest of the structures at Spahn were destroyed in the same fire in September 1970 that destroyed most of the remaining sets at Iverson — along with Corriganville to the west, in Simi Valley. The fire ravaged a huge area from Newhall to Malibu.

In the shot above, the flat area on the right, above the head of the guy in the black hat, is now the site of the Rocky Peak Church, west of Iverson. Toward the left, the winding mountain road directly above the Spahn buildings is a dirt road that I think is referred to as West Santa Susana Pass Road, which still exists today and is probably a hiking area.

Cowboys and Aliens? Something's going onin the skies above a beloved TV Western

2012-01-07T13:15:00.000-08:00

I love a good anachronism — who doesn't? Here's one in an early episode of the TV Western "Have Gun Will Travel." The episode, "Show of Force," originally aired Nov. 9, 1957, and the show was set in the Wild West days (obviously). But you can't miss the jet contrails in the sky — especially given that they did a nice wide pan shot.

It's a little bit surprising that the producers of the show didn't think it mattered — or just didn't notice them, which is a good possibility. Contrails were so common at the time (not that they're uncommon now) that they could easily be overlooked. These were almost certainly military, as they were formed by two jets flying in formation. It was the Cold War era, and the military had a big Nike missile installation at Oat Mountain (the lighter-colored hill that appears at the right of the shot), which probably had nothing to do with the jets flying over, but who knows? Parts of the missile base were also regularly creeping into the backgrounds of productions shot around this time — you can see an example here (from "Panic in Year Zero," appropriately enough — a nuclear war movie).

The above photo is a two-part composite taken from a pan — a nice shot even without the contrails as it provides context for the bunkhouse, which was part of the Middle Iverson Ranch Set. I posted a detailed entry not too long ago about the set, which you can see here. I know these photos start out pretty small — especially in a wide format like the one above — so you'll have to click on the picture to enlarge it if you really want to see anythimg.

Killer shot of Lipless Diplodocus

2012-01-05T19:24:00.000-08:00

I recently ran across this nice rock closeup in a 1957 episode of "Have Gun Will Travel," titled "Strange Vendetta." This is easily the best view I've seen of the rock I've been calling Diplodocus from the period after its top "lip" disappeared. I did a detailed post not too long ago about Diplodocus with and without its lip — including the opposite side of the rock, Grumpy. (I named them before I knew they were the same rock, which is a pretty common occurrence.) Check out that earlier post here for more details about Diplodocus and Grumpy. As I mentioned in the earlier post, the top "lip" of Diplodocus probably went away around 1952. The rock was located on the South Rim of the Upper Iverson, and I've never been able to determine whether it still exists — which is usually an indication that it's gone. But you never know, and I'm still searching for it.

Roger Corman's Iverson movies, Part 1: Five Guns West

2012-01-02T15:24:00.000-08:00

Roger Corman

One of the most interesting filmmakers to embrace the Iverson Movie Ranch as a shooting location over the years is Roger Corman, whose Iverson work goes all the way back to his first movie as a director.

A traditional Western in many respects, the 1955 film "Five Guns West" — Corman's directorial debut, which he also produced — boasts better production values, a better script and better acting than the B-Westerns that inspired it, serving notice that the career of an important filmmaker was being launched.

Dorothy Malone

The cast includes Mike Connors — long before he became famous as TV's Mannix, back when he was known as "Touch Connors" — and the potent screen presence of Dorothy Malone, who tantalizes the outlaws with her raw sexuality. John Lund, best known for Billy Wilder's "A Foreign Affair" (1948), plays the male lead.

Corman's ability to economize on production costs was already evident, with "Five Guns West" shot almost in its entirety at two locations: The first half-hour takes place at the Iverson Movie Ranch, with the rest of the movie set a few miles south of there at the Jack Ingram Ranch. (Jack Ingram, who was a B-Western regular for years before opening his location ranch, also has a role in the movie.) The above shot features a widely filmed rock on the Upper Iverson, known as Wrench Rock or Indian Head. Even though the rock is a familiar feature in Iverson movies, it's unusual to see it used in this manner — as the scene of an ambush. Incidentally, that gap to the right of Wrench Rock that the rider is passing through is sometimes called Devil's Gate, because it's referred to that way in one of the first "Bonanza" episodes.

This shot, looking south from Iverson's Cactus Hill, offers a rare long-distance view of the movie ranch's most famous section, the Garden of the Gods (to the left of the riders), along with a familiar rocky background hill above Chatsworth Park, which I call Elders Peak (directly above the riders) and a look at the western San Fernando Valley — still rural at that time — including Chatsworth Reservoir (above the rider in the rear). You may want to enlarge the photo, by clicking on it, to get a better look at these features.

Corman's Iverson shoot for "Five Guns West" is an unusual one, taking place mostly on Cactus Hill — probably the most prominent single feature at Iverson, but one that was typically seen only in the background and was rarely used as a shooting location in its own right. Corman used that fact to his advantage, shooting heavily on Cactus Hill and getting unusual shots in the process. The above shot, looking north from Cactus Hill, provides a rare glimpse of a rock I call Gorilla, seen at the right of the photo, just above the halfway point.

Here's another view of Gorilla from a recent site visit, again looking north. You can also see Oat Mountain in the distance, along with some of the estates that now fill the former Upper Iverson. For the Iverson aficionados, that's the back end of Turtle Rock directly to the left of Gorilla.

Cactus Hill has traditionally been referred to anonymously by film location researchers (for example: "a large hill separating the Upper and Lower Iverson"), but it came to my attention recently that the Iverson family called it Cactus Hill, and it works for me. True to its name, Cactus Hill is loaded with impressive cactus. Above is an example from a recent visit. The hill also features a treasure trove of beautiful and underutilized movie rocks, if you're into that sort of thing (which I am).

Another shot from "Five Guns West" — looking toward the west this time — features another unusual Iverson rock located atop Cactus Hill. Between the trailing rider and the two leading riders is a spherical rock I call the Head, because when you first come upon it along the trail, it looks a lot like a human head.

Here's a shot of the Head that I snapped on a visit to the site in the past year or so. You may notice some of the same hills in the background that are seen in the "Five Guns West" shot above, although they're a bit overexposed here.

One intriguing thing about the Head is that it's manmade — the smaller rock on top of the formation was cemented onto the larger rock that forms the base. This closeup shows some of the cement work. Whenever I find a rock at Iverson that has been cemented, and there are a number of them, I get especially interested because I know it was done specifically for the movies — the place was a working movie ranch, after all — and that immediately raises at least a couple of questions: What movie was it done for, and why? And where else does it appear?

"Apache Woman," 1955, directed by Roger Corman

In the case of the Head, I'm sure it wasn't done specifically for the Corman movie. It's not the kind of thing he would budget for, and besides, it was probably done a few years earlier. The bulk of the cement work at Iverson appears to have taken place around 1950-1951, indicating that the practice may have been associated with the transition from B-movies to early TV shows. Maybe the Iversons felt they had to "spruce up" the place to get it in shape for what would turn out to be extensive TV work in the 1950s. But most of the "stacked rocks" created during the "cement scare" of the early 1950s never ended up being used much — with a few noteworthy exceptions, which I will cover in a future post.

Jack Ingram Ranch, as seen in "Five Guns West"

For now, suffice to say that whatever the motivation was to create "the Head," the rock almost never turned up in any productions. I'm sure it will eventually show up somewhere else, but at this time Corman's "Five Guns West" is the only movie I've found that features it.

"Viking Women and the Sea Serpent,"

1957, directed by Roger Corman

Roger Corman returned to Iverson a number of times, especially early in his career, and whenever he shot there — often with "Five Guns West" cinematographer Floyd Crosby — he typically found inventive ways to shoot it. The pair collaborated again on another Iverson Western, "Apache Woman," later in 1955, and Corman continued to shoot at Iverson even after moving on from Westerns to his trademark cult movies — including "Viking Women and the Sea Serpent" (whose full title is much longer) in 1957 and "Teenage Caveman" in 1958. I'll feature more of Corman's Iverson work in Part 2.

Topanga Canyon Boulevard — sort of — circa 1947

2011-12-29T15:50:00.000-08:00

This is an older blog entry that I decided to update and repost because I've learned more about it since then and wanted to clarify some details.

The above shot is from the 1947 Republic serial "The Black Widow," directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet and Fred C. Brannon, with cinematography by the great John MacBurnie. We're looking toward the north at what I believed when I originally posted this to be part of Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Chatsworth, circa 1947. I originally noted: "Anyone familiar with that corner of the San Fernando Valley knows that Topanga has come a long way from being an undeveloped two-lane country road with nothing but a fruit stand as far as the eye can see. These days it's fully built out and even at six lanes wide or more, constantly jammed with cars."

However, I've since learned that Topanga Canyon Boulevard may not have existed at that time, at least not that far north. It's a bit of a technicality, as this stretch of road appears to be in more or less the same place where one finds Topanga now — and old aerial photos of the area do show a country road following much of the route now occupied by Topanga. The stretch of road seen above was most likely part of Old Santa Susana Pass Road, which followed part of the current Topanga route at that time, or it may have been a nearby north-south route traversing what was then a very rural eastern San Fernando Valley. It's definitely Chatsworth, based on the landmarks noted below (from the original post).

Among the landmarks in this screen shot are Stoney Point on the far right and some of the rocks at or near the Iverson Movie Ranch in the center background, which would be right where the 118 freeway now crosses Topanga. All the way in the background is Oat Mountain.

Here's a more recent shot of Stoney Point, which is a familiar sight to motorists traveling along the northern end of Topanga. It's a popular rock-climbing venue these days. It has minimal history as a movie location in its own right, but it appears frequently in the background of films shot at the nearby Iverson Movie Ranch.

Stoney Point also figures prominently in a well-known promo shot for John Ford's "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940), seen above. In the movie itself, Stoney Point was cut out of the shot, with the focus instead on the rich farmland that surrounded it in 1940 — all of which has since been fully developed into residential and business properties. Check out Jerry England's blog for a good entry on Stoney Point, including a bit more about "Grapes of Wrath."

Here's an example of how this shot is handled in the movie:

The sequence is shot from Iverson, although I've never been sure whether it's taken from Overlook Point (aka Camera Mount) or somewhere else. At any rate, this view signifies the arrival of the migrant family in the promised land of California, where they have been counting on finding agricultural jobs. After barely making it through the Mojave Desert, they're pretty excited to see how good the land is here. I find a sort of circular perfection — albeit a bit disturbing (and I've never been able to properly explain it) — in Hollywood telling the story of the migration to California for farming. "The Real McCoys" is another example, even if it's a lot lighter in tone.

The point I always arrive at is that the migration to California for farming, which followed the migration to California for gold, was followed by another migration to California for the booming Hollywood movie industry. And it was Hollywood that mushroomed into probably the single biggest factor in the growth of California — at least Southern California — and therefore led to the destruction of all that great farmland. Iverson and other movie ranches fit into that evolution too, playing a key role in building the movie and TV industry before ultimately succumbing to the development pressure that they helped create. As I said, I've never been able to properly express it.

On a lighter note, Stoney Point is a great place to see faces pop out of the rocks. Here are a couple of the characters I spotted in the recent photo of Stoney Point above:

Creature From the Black Lagoon

The Alien

Wee Willie Winkie and Shirley Temple Rock

2011-12-29T00:30:00.000-08:00

One of the most important location shoots in the early history of the Iverson Movie Ranch was for Wee Willie Winkie in 1937, directed by John Ford and starring Shirley Temple and Victor McLaglen. A number of sets were built for the production, notably the India Outpost at Sheep Flats, which has been featured in a recent post, and the mountain stronghold of Khoda Khan (Cesar Romero), seen below. The Khan set was built next to the formidable rock structure known as The Wall in Iverson's Upper Gorge.

Khoda Khan's stronghold, Iverson Gorge, Wee Willie Winkie, 1937

The set in the Upper Gorge at the time included a number of stone or adobe buildings, one of which is seen above, along with Shirley Temple perched on a rock that I eventually came to refer to as Shirley Temple Rock. This rock — a small one by Iverson standards — has appeared in other productions as well, and has been useful in helping to identify scenes shot in the Upper Gorge.

This is Shirley again, scampering about near the rock as the battle rages all around her in Wee Willie Winkie. The movie is based on a Rudyard Kipling story set in India during the British colonial period. This view gives a better idea what Shirley Temple Rock looks like.

Here's a much later appearance by Shirley Temple Rock, in the 1960 movie One Foot in Hell, shot long after the Wee Willie Winkie sets were gone. I'm unsure whether the rock still exists, but I'll post an update if I find it.

Update on the Adobe Fort at Sheep Flats — connecting some of the dots

2011-12-28T15:55:00.001-08:00

Following up on yesterday's post about the Adobe Fort at Sheep Flats, I found a couple of screen shots that provide an interesting comparison ...

Wee Willie Winkie, 1937

The above shot from Wee Willie Winkie in 1937 and the shot below from Army Girl the following year may contain some of the same buildings. I believe they both include a particular rock, although it's much more obvious in the Army Girl shot. One of the better clues, although it doesn't appear so at first, could be the trees.

Army Girl, 1938

I believe the buildings seen here, including the two-story ones, are the same ones seen in the right half of the Wee Willie Winkie shot, even though those are all single-story. The best starting point is the rock. Here it's seen at the far left of the photo. In the Wee Willie Winkie shot, it's close to the center of the photo — and only the top of the rock is visible. (It may help to click on the photo to enlarge it.)

Directly above the rock are some trees, and even though they lean the "wrong way" from one photo to the next, and while they're mere wisps in the Winkie shot compared with the more fully fleshed out giants seen a year later in Army Girl, the horizon lined formed by the treetops, working to the right from the rock, does seem to match. (The part that compares is the right half of the Winkie photo with the left half of the Army Girl photo, ending at the flagpole.) My guess is they must have got a lot of rain in the year or so in between the two productions, and the trees really filled out. The two shots are probably also taken at a different time of year.

Oddly, the flagpole appears to be in the same place in both shots. It's surprising considering that the sets were so mobile, with even buildings being moved around.

The buildings themselves bear little outward resemblance. Besides the second stories being added, the overall complex has a new finish and different trim, along with possible changes to the windows and doors. But the general layout seems to be the same.

The Adobe Fort at Sheep Flats

2011-12-27T18:51:00.000-08:00

Rawhide Rangers, 1941

In the years before Iverson's Western street was built at Sheep Flats in 1945, for the Gary Cooper movie Along Came Jones, a pretty spectacular adobe fort stood on the site for a while. Its history is a bit cloudy, but what's known is that it was in place from at least 1938 to 1941, appearing in a number of movies and serials during that span, and can probably be traced to Wee Willie Winkie in 1937.

Army Girl, 1938

The structure went through a series of changes over the years and had a few different looks in different films. In Army Girl it took on a white stone finish, while in the Western-themed movies it had more of a traditional adobe appearance.

Wee Willie Winkie, 1937

It's almost inevitable that the structure's history would be traced to Wee Willie Winkie, specifically the expansive India outpost that was built on Sheep Flats for this landmark production — a big-budget Shirley Temple movie that was said to include the most costly sets ever built at Iverson. I'm sure this is where the fort originated, but I've tried a number of times to match up the buildings in Wee Willie Winkie with those seen in subsequent movies and have never succeeded in doing so. (Update: I finally did have some luck with that — check out this post.)

Here's a shot from Fugitive Valley (1941), showing Cactus Hill in the background and placing the adobes near the western end of Sheep Flats. In addition to the movies cited above, the adobe complex appeared in Rocky Mountain Rangers (1940) and in the Republic serials Zorro's Fighting Legion (1939) and Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941).

It's believed that portions of the adobe complex were eventually incorporated into Iverson Village when it was built in 1945, but here again, I've never been able to make a positive match. Today Sheep Flats is home to the Indian Hills Mobile Home Village.

Center Rock, Sheep Flats, Smooth Hill ... and a bunch of utility poles

2011-12-23T11:12:00.000-08:00

Here's a nice shot from one of the best Iverson movies, the 1940 Three Mesquiteers installment Rocky Mountain Rangers, from Republic Pictures. It's directed by George Sherman, with cinematography by Jack Marta — both men worked a lot at Iverson and contributed mightily to documenting its legacy in the form of cinematic images.

One thing I like about this shot is it reveals no fewer than five utility poles on and around Smooth Hill, all the way back in 1940. That means they were in place for the bulk of the B-Western shoots, including throughout the lifespan of Iverson Village. Some of them can occasionally be seen as anachronisms in the background of Westerns, but rarely are they as clearly evident as they are here. You still may have a hard time seeing them. (Click on the photo to enlarge it.) Two of them are at the top, just to the right of the hill's peak. Another one is farther right, sticking out from the top of a rock along the horizon, near the right of the shot. Two more are about midway down the hill, near the center of the shot, along what appears to be a road cut across the hill.

Please note that I've included the Amazon ad above for the "Saturday Matinee Double Feature" DVD because the set includes the great Iverson movie "Rocky Mountain Rangers" (along with the non-Iverson Buck Jones/Tim McCoy Rough Riders movie "Arizona Bound").

Click here for a post that talks about what happened to Smooth Hill and also shows what it looked like in the background of Iverson Village.

Another shot from Rocky Mountain Rangers, from approximately the same angle, gives a better look at Center Rock, the light-colored clump of rocks at the left of the shot. Center Rock was in the middle of Sheep Flats, where Iverson's Western town was built a few years later. This cluster of rocks was noteworthy for a number of things, including its isolated location, its protruding ledge and the odd little arch at its base. Somewhat miraculously, Center Rock survived, even as a trailer park — the Indian Hills Mobile Home Village — was built around it.

Today Center Rock's setting isn't nearly as grand, as it's been stuffed behind fences and barriers and is essentially part of a maintenance facility at the park. I've been especially frustrated by that white plywood, which not only is a bit of an eyesore but also conceals the rock's trademark arch.

Here's a shot of Center Rock in the 1948 Republic serial G-Men Never Forget, showing pretty much the same angle as the contemporary shot above. Looks like the arch would be just about big enough to hide a motorcycle.

Here's what Center Rock looks like today from the other side. The rock was rarely filmed from this side.

Grumpy and Diplodocus — joined at the lip

2011-12-15T10:28:00.001-08:00

Grumpy, as seen in South of Death Valley (1949)

In a previous post about Fayte Browne, one of the great Iverson cinematographers, I briefly mentioned a rock I call Grumpy, because Browne featured shots of Grumpy in his masterpiece "South of Death Valley." You can see the Fayte Browne post here. But the time has come — it's way overdue, to be honest — to really put Grumpy in the spotlight.

Diplodocus, in West to Glory (1947)

I could have said the same thing about a rock called Diplodocus. I did a previous post that included Diplodocus in connection with examining the work of another great Iverson cinematographer, Milford Anderson. That post can be seen here.

Here's the head of a toy diplodocus. I know, it doesn't look that much like the rock. I may have been thinking of brachiosaurus. What can I say? It reminded me of a diplodocus at the time, and the name stuck. I guess I should get this out of the way too: I like to intentionally mispronounce it, because when I was growing up and played with toy dinosaurs, I always thought it was pronounced dip-low-DOCK-us; it was only years later that I learned it's supposed to be pronounced dih-PLOD-uh-cuss — not nearly as much fun.

Brachiosaurus

Anyway ...

Here's a little different angle on Grumpy, from Ghost Town Renegades (1947). The view here is from the south, looking north to Oat Mountain in the background. Grumpy was situated right next to one of the Upper Iverson's major chase roads.

The news flash is that Grumpy and Diplodocus are the same rock, shot from opposite sides. Either way it's a beauty. Shot from the west or southwest, it's Grumpy. Shot from the east, it's Diplodocus.

Grumpy, or Diplodocus, was located on the Upper Iverson's heavily filmed South Rim, and showed up in the background in countless chase scenes over the decades. In the shot above, from the seminal Republic serial The Perils of Nyoka (1942), you can see Grumpy just to the left of the chariot.

The Grump also shielded its share of shooters over the years — more often as Grumpy than as Diplodocus. Here's an example from the 1951 Tim Holt movie Hot Lead.

Another look at Diplodocus, from the 1948 Eddie Dean movie Check Your Guns. The research into this rock took another twist when I realized I was seeing the rock in some later productions, but something was missing. Compare this with the color shot below, a few years later, from The Lone Gun (1954).

That's Diplodocus again, on the right. But it's missing a big chunk. I think of it as the top lip being gone.

A closer look at the rock, from the Grumpy side, again missing the top lip. This shot is from an episode of the TV show The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp called Just Before the Battle, which first aired on June 13, 1961. It's a little hard to recognize Grumpy from this angle, but it checks out. You may be able to tell by comparing it to the shot three photos above it, from Hot Lead, which is taken from a similar angle. The piece of rock that the shooter is hiding behind in that shot — Grumpy's "top lip" — is gone now.

Back in its heyday — when it still had all of its original parts — Grumpy was sometimes used as a colorful framing device, as in this shot from a 1952 episode of the Abbott and Costello TV show called The Western Story. This was probably one of the last appearances of the Grump with the top lip. I've been able to narrow down that the lip vanished by sometime in 1952, based on where and when Grumpy and Diplodocus show up with or without the lip. I can't help but wonder why the lip disappeared, but as it always was kind of precariously perched, it may have just fallen off. (In which case it should be lying around, right? Now there's a souvenir I'd like to have.)

Here's a glimpse of lipless Grumpy in Gunsmoke, with James Arness and Dennis Weaver. It's from an episode called Custer, which premiered Sept. 22, 1956. You can see Grumpy in the background, just above the head of Marshal Dillon (James Arness). You can enlarge the photo (and any of these photos) by clicking on it.

I've searched for Grumpy/Diplodocus countless times and haven't found it. I did find this cluster of rocks in a driveway in the same general area, and I've tried to match it up, but it's hard to get at the right angle. My guess is it's not the same cluster of rocks, and my sense is that Grumpy/D no longer exists. But I haven't completely given up on it.

There you have it — Grumpy and Diplo. I suppose the moral of the story is even a rock can have a hard time keeping a stiff upper lip.

Remember to say dip-low-DOCK-us — it's fun!

The Tomb: A rare shoot at Iverson in the 1980s

2011-11-27T14:46:00.000-08:00

An unusual entry in Iverson Movie Ranch lore is the 1986 movie The Tomb, directed by Fred Olen Ray with a cast that includes Cameron Mitchell, John Carradine and Sybil Danning. The plot involves the theft of artifacts from an unmarked Egyptian grave — which turns out to be located on the Upper Iverson — and the revenge sought by the ancient Egyptian woman whose tomb it was. It's apparently based on a Bram Stoker novel, The Jewel of Seven Stars.

A few well-chosen landmarks such as the Sphinx and the Pyramids — presumably stock footage — place the action in Egypt, before it shifts to the Upper Iverson. (Note that the Iverson Movie Ranch does have its own Sphinx, also known as Eagle Beak, which can be seen here.) What's interesting to me about The Tomb is that 1986 was almost two decades after Iverson stopped being a working movie ranch, and only a few productions were filmed there around this time. The movie includes just one short sequence at Iverson, but it's important footage — and it includes the appealing sight of cast members tromping around the South Rim of the Upper Iverson with a couple of camels.

The above shot features a rock I call Tamale, in the top left corner. It was widely seen in the B-Westerns and serials of the 1930s through the 1950s, and I believe it still exists today although I've never seen it. The area where it was located (and should still be located) is a spot I would love to get a look at but it's part of a private estate and remains essentially unexplored by movie historians. The Tomb may be the last movie to be filmed in this area before it was developed.

On their journey to find the hidden tomb, the adventurers pass some other familiar Iverson sights, including these iconic stone towers that have been called the Totem Rocks, Totem Pole Rocks, Easter Island Committee or simply Easter Island. The distinctive overhanging tower — Notch Rock — seen just right of center (directly above the head of the camel on the right) has at times served as the clincher that a production is shot at Iverson. More about Easter Island and the Notch, or Notch Rock, can be found here.

This shot from The Tomb is probably one of the last overviews of a portion of the Upper Iverson to appear in the movies. The shot looks north toward Oat Mountain (in the distant background, toward the right), with some of the rocks of the South Rim in the foreground. The photo below shows what this area looks like today.

Here's a view of approximately the same portion of the Upper Iverson in more recent times, from a 2009 visit, showing a number of the estates that have been built on the former movie ranch property. Construction has slowed considerably in recent years, but still continues. In many cases the landmark rocks seen in the movies and TV shows have been removed to make way for houses, and in other cases they remain preserved, in a way, as part of the landscape — often in driveways and back yards. Still others survive in hiking areas around the fringes of the developed land.

As the two American adventurers and their Egyptian guide close in on the hidden tomb, they hike below a rock I recognize as Moschops, which I've talked about in a previous post. In the shot above, Moschops is the pointed rock in the background, above and to the right of the guide. Moschops is still in place on the South Rim, and this shot turned out to be helpful in my own search for the tomb.

Here's a shot of Moschops and its environs in more recent times, taken during my search for the "tomb" in October 2011. This shot has some of the same rocks in the foreground that are seen in the movie shot, and these rocks turned out to be where the cave entrance was situated. You'll probably have to enlarge the shot (by clicking on it) to see Moschops, as it's pretty small. It's in the background, along the skyline, a little right of center.

Back to the movie, at last the team arrives at the secret entrance to the tomb — and heads on in.

The surprising thing — after finding the place myself and realizing how small it is — is that the filmmakers shot the entry in a continuous shot and somehow all three of those guys squeezed in there, into what amounts to little more than a small crack between a couple of rocks.

Here's the secret tomb entrance today, still readily accessible on the Upper Iverson's South Rim. The area surrounding this feature was heavily filmed, and it surprised me when I found this spot because cave entrances and arches are generally big attractions and got plenty of use during the filming days ... but this one appears to have been largely overlooked. I'm sure it will eventually turn up in other productions, but at this point I can say I've never seen it anywhere else. In honor of the movie's featured use of this spot, I've been calling it Tomb Rock and Tomb Cave.

Sort of an amusing coda to the quest for the tomb is that once the boys got inside they found a huge hidden chamber, complete with plenty of treasure and smooth, carefully built walls — not at all what one would suspect from the outside!

Harry Stradling Jr.: an unsung Iverson hero

2011-11-04T17:25:00.000-07:00

Oscar-nominated cinematographer Harry Stradling Jr. is well-known for his work as director of photography on a string of successful movies from the late 1960s through the 1980s — With Six You Get Eggroll, Little Big Man, The Way We Were, Rooster Cogburn, Midway, Carny ... the list goes on. What's less well-known, but also deserving of recognition, is his work at the Iverson Movie Ranch, which was in some cases pioneering and in other cases just plain unequaled.

The Way We Were (1973)

Stradling, who earned back-to-back Oscar nominations for best cinematography in 1973 (for the movie 1776) and 1974 (for The Way We Were), is the son of another acclaimed cinematographer, Harry Stradling Sr., who piled up an imposing 14 Oscar nominations during his long career and took home trophies for The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) and My Fair Lady (1964).

The family's lineage also includes silent film-era cinematographer Walter Stradling, Harry Stradling Jr.'s great-uncle, an industry pioneer whose work goes all the way back to the 1914 drama Captain Alvarez and includes a number of Mary Pickford films — Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917), The Little Princess (1917), Stella Maris (1918) and others.

On the set of Gypsy (1962): former first lady Mamie Eisenhower,

left, camera operator Harry Stradling Jr., actress Rosalind Russell

and, bottom right, DP Harry Stradling Sr.

Like most DPs, Harry Stradling Jr. spent much of his early career as a camera assistant and camera operator, often uncredited, starting with Gaslight in 1944. He worked alongside his dad on some of the elder Stradling's high-profile projects in the late 1950s and early 1960s — Guys and Dolls (1955), The Pajama Game (1957), A Summer Place (1959), Gypsy (1962). Beginning in the mid-1960s he spread his wings as a DP in his own right, with the 1967 movie Welcome to Hard Times his first feature film as cinematographer. (IMDb lists the 1965 movie Synanon as his first, but Harry confirms that's an erroneous listing, as Synanon was shot by his dad.)

Stradling Jr. came into his own — and stepped up to the plate at Iverson in a big way — during the middle years of the long-running TV Western Gunsmoke. Between 1964 and 1967 he shot 87 episodes of the show — a drop in the bucket for a series that was on television for 20 seasons and churned out a record 635 episodes, but a significant contribution to the evolution of the TV Western and, in particular, an important part of the later history of the Iverson Movie Ranch.

Stradling's Gunsmoke work brought him to Iverson on only a few occasions, but he made the most of them. Above and below are a few shots from the episode Outlaw's Woman, which first aired on Dec. 11, 1965. These shots were taken from high up in the boulders atop Garden of the Gods, which had to be a logistical challenge, to say the least. This first shot in the sequence shows two bushwhackers looking down on the iconic giants known as Eagle Beak, or Sphinx, on the left, and Indian Head, or Tower Rock, on the right. The fact that we're looking down on them says something about how high up we are. Eagle Beak and Indian Head are two of the most imposing, and most famous, rocks at Iverson. They're usually seen from the opposite angle — from below and from the other side — towering over the action, as in their trademark appearance in Stagecoach, shown in another post.

The views from this unusual angle are pretty spectacular, and Stradling would have had to orchestrate a lot of equipment and crew members to get these shots. Among the problems: the height and inaccessability (I doubt he could have used a crane up there); the awkward, heavy, delicate and expensive camera gear; the wind (it's just about always windy up there); and the uneven surface of the rocks. Just getting the camera in place — and keeping it from going down in a mighty crash — would have taken significant planning. The above shot looks down on the Iverson Gorge, including Nyoka Cliff just above the hat of the guy on the right. Nyoka Cliff usually looms above everything else, so seeing how far below us it is gives another indication of the height. A number of other familiar Iverson rocks also appear in the shot, including Lone Ranger Rock near the top left corner.

Another shot taken high up in the rarefied air atop Garden of the Gods — this one appears to be shot from even higher than the previous shot. We're again looking down on Sphinx/Eagle Beak (top left corner) and Tower Rock/Indian Head (top center). Stradling was shooting, in effect, from the Lower Iverson's highest point — it's the only time in my hundreds of scans of Iverson productions that I've seen any DP attempt this.

One more shot from the same Gunsmoke episode — this one isn't taken up in the heights but it's a personal favorite. Marshal Matt Dillon has just shot a bad guy, who earns his money by collapsing on one of the rocks in Garden of the Gods.

Stradling moved on from Gunsmoke in 1967 to take a position as the DP for a new TV Western, Cimarron Strip, which starred Stuart Whitman. The series lasted just one season (1967-68), but it accounted for a few good moments at Iverson. Stradling shot 21 of the show's 23 episodes.

Only a couple of episodes of Cimarron Strip were shot at Iverson. The best examples are found in the episode Fool's Gold, as seen above. The episode premiered Jan. 11, 1968, and was probably shot during the few months before that airdate. It includes the relatively rare phenomenon of water features on the Upper Iverson — an indication that it was taped during the rainy season. By the way, that's Slim Pickens at the gate.

In general, water features at Iverson are rarely shot, maybe because it's hard to plan for them to be there. The place tends to be bone dry, to the point where film crews have to bring in their own water source when they do need to make a splash. My sense is that natural ponds such as this one get used in productions only when a production crew comes along that's able to think on its feet. Someone had to adapt quickly to take advantage of something as unexpected as a waterhole on the Upper Iverson, and Stradling got the shot — reflection and all.

The building in these shots is also pretty rare, and I've never seen it featured to the extent it is in this Cimarron Strip episode. It's generally just a shed on the outskirts of the Fury Set — a set consisting mainly of a large barn and small ranch house, built for the TV show Fury. In its Cimarron Strip appearance the shed serves as the home of Malachi Grimes, Slim Pickens' character.

Here's another angle on the Fury Set, including the barn, as seen in the same Fool's Gold episode of Cimarron Strip. The set was situated on the Upper Iverson's North Rim. That's the back of Malachi's place in the foreground.

One more shot from the terrific Fool's Gold episode of Cimarron Strip: This one shows a rock that's a personal favorite of mine, which I call World of Outlaws. It's the round rock with the massive "wing" atop it, seen near the center of the shot, above the horse with two riders on it. Sadly, World of Outlaws no longer exists — a casualty of the development of the Upper Iverson.

Not long after Cimarron Strip shut down, Harry Stradling Jr. returned to Iverson to shoot a key scene for a feature film, 1969's Support Your Local Sheriff. The comedic Western can be thought of as Iverson's farewell to the 1960s and the coda to the era of Iverson as a working movie ranch.

James Garner and Jack Elam

in Support Your Local Sheriff (1969)

This was after the 118 Freeway was in place, rendering the Lower Iverson unusable, and by this time the Iverson as a whole had ceased being a full-time filming location. But Stradling shot the title sequence and a few other minor shots for Support Your Local Sheriff on the Upper Iverson, giving us what amounts to one last look at the place.

The title sequence features a fast-paced land rush, with a number of Iverson landmarks popping up. Above is a relatively rare movie rock found on the Upper Iverson's North Rim, which I call Platypus. (This isn't the angle where it looks like a platypus; stay tuned for that — I'm looking for a good one. In fact, I believe the above shot, shown as it appears in the movie, is flipped horizontally.)

Here's a nice wide shot from the opening land rush sequence, showing Oat Mountain in the distance and again featuring Platypus, in the background at left, along with a neighboring rock, Fish Head. You'll probably have to click on the photo to enlarge it for a better look. Today Platypus and Fish Head stand as symbols of the frustration that is an inescapable part of Iverson research. I believe one or both of these intriguing rocks have survived, but I've never seen them in person as they are concealed on private property — hidden under a tree in the backyard of one of the estates that now occupy most of the Upper Iverson. I often wonder whether the owner of the property has any idea about the sandstone treasure he has in his yard.

Harry Stradling Jr. worked in an era that was already well past the heyday of the Iverson Movie Ranch, and things had evolved since the age of the B-Westerns of the '30s and '40s and the early TV Westerns of the '50s. For one thing, Harry notes that the directors called all the shots, which, even in an industry where the director has always been king, stands in contrast to the relative autonomy of some of those earlier productions. When cost-conscious operations such as Republic and PRC showed up at Iverson, with their much smaller crews, we're pretty sure the decision-making responsibility trickled all the way down to the man behind the camera — leaving room for legendary Iverson DPs such as Ernest Miller and John MacBurnie to work things out for themselves. We're curious what Harry would have done with the place had he come along a couple of decades earlier and really had carte blanche. But we're grateful that he got a shot at it when he did.

Thanks for the Iverson memories, Harry!

Scratch off another mystery: The Toucan has been found

2011-11-02T20:06:00.000-07:00

One of the mysteries that captured my fancy in the early days of my research into Iverson (before I even considered it "research") was this unusual rock seen in the background of the Lone Ranger movie, shot in 1949:

To me it looked like a large beak, and I started calling it Toucan. I always suspected the appearance might be an optical illusion, and it turns out that it is.

Maybe you can see the resemblance to a real toucan.

Of course, this is the toucan that's familiar to most Americans.

Toucan eventually began turning up in a few other places, and each time I got clues that helped pinpoint its location. The above shot from Range Beyond the Blue (1947) helped establish it as Lower Iverson, with a distinctive peak in the background that I think is Rocky Peak, which I also call Pyramid Peak. (Everyone always talks about Rocky Peak, and kind of nods in that general direction, but no one has ever said with any conviction whether that particular rocky peak is the real Rocky Peak.) Toucan is in the center of the shot, and doesn't look as "Toucan-y" as it did in the Lone Ranger movie. Incidentally, the quirky rock in the foreground has yet to be found.

Another angle, this time from Rocky Mountain Rangers (1940). That's Toucan at the right of the photo. With each new angle it looks less like a toucan. The hills in the background are west of Chatsworth Park.

Today, more than three years after first spotting it in Lone Ranger, I finally found Toucan. It was hiding under a tree. It was a lot smaller than I expected, and covered with green moss (or something), presumably from getting too much shade. It's located in a portion of the former Iverson that has been preserved as a park, in the area just north of Garden of the Gods, which I call the North Cluster. The above shot shows what it looks like today, from close to the same angle as the Rocky Mountain Rangers shot above.

Here's the most "toucan-y" shot I can get of it today, which isn't very toucan-y. It's hard to get a good look at the rock because of the tree that surrounds it.

It's right next to the Saddle, a rock that is on the radar of most Iverson researchers. Toucan and Saddle are kind of hidden under the same tree. I used to call this one the Bongos before I encountered other researchers and found out that some of these rocks already had perfectly good names — in most cases more Western-sounding than mine, which is a good thing when naming rocks that may have appeared in hundreds of Westerns.

Here's a shot I took today showing the Saddle, on the right, which is a little bit hard to see because of the tree, and the Toucan, on the left, which is almost impossible to see under the tree — just to show their proximity to each other.

Panic in Year Zero ... Where to go in a nuclear holocaust

2011-10-28T10:37:00.000-07:00

The 1962 Cold War movie Panic in Year Zero, starring and directed by Ray Milland, with Jean Hagen, Frankie Avalon, Mary Mitchell and Joan Freeman, tells the story of the Baldwins, a family that escapes Los Angeles just before a nuclear attack and starts a new life in the wilds of what we now know was the Iverson Movie Ranch. The movie features some of the more interesting shots of Iverson to survive from its later years as a working movie location.

The adventure begins innocently enough ...

The above shot is taken on the former Republic Pictures backlot in Studio City, Calif., where countless B-Westerns were also shot. It shows the start of what was supposed to be a normal family vacation — this was before the bomb fell — and we can see that the neighbor's house, at the left in the above shot, is a converted barn. The same barn, formerly known as Melody Ranch, was seen in a number of Gene Autry's Republic movies along with many other Westerns. (Gene later used the name Melody Ranch for his own movie ranch in Newhall.) As it appears here, converted to something like a large suburban house, the same building also reportedly functioned as the family home on the TV show My Three Sons. The Republic lot went through many incarnations over the years — it was originally the Mack Sennett-Keystone lot, then home to Mascot Pictures before Republic took over — and eventually became CBS's Radford lot, which it remains today. (The barn, however, is long gone.)

In a pivotal sequence in Panic in Year Zero, the Baldwin family looks back on L.A. and gets the bad news in the form of a massive mushroom cloud. The shot is taken from Santa Susana Pass Road between the San Fernando Valley and Simi Valley, which was the main road between the two valleys before the 118 Freeway went in. (The 118, completed around 1969, effectively wrote the epitaph for both Iverson and Corriganville, two of the most important movie ranches of the old Hollywood era.)

Another view of the mushroom cloud, without the family in the picture, reveals a distinctive rock at the bottom of the shot, which is a key to finding the location today. While it's hard to make out in the distance, much of the Lower Iverson Movie Ranch appears in the shot, just above and to the right of the large rock near the bottom center of the photo. The shot is taken a short distance west of Iverson.

Here's another shot from the movie with the same general view before the bomb hits, where it's a little easier to make out the Lower Iverson in the background, along with a portion of the still relatively undeveloped San Fernando Valley, circa 1962. Click on the photo to enlarge it, and you might be able to spot Garden of the Gods and other Iverson features.

Here's what the site looks like today. The spot can be easily found — thanks to that one distinctive rock — and is viewable from a turnout along the side of the road. Here again, Iverson is visible near the center of the shot. The Rocky Peak Church also appears in this shot — the white complex with a red roof, just above that distinctive rock — and some of the condos and other features of the modern-day Iverson Ranch are also seen.

As the bomb turns loose millions of panic-stricken Angelenos on the highways, the Baldwin family seeks refuge in the wilderness, which means Iverson. Here they arrive at a secret camping area, through a gate marked by a couple of formidable boulders that can still be found on the Upper Iverson. In other movies this pair of boulders had horses and stagecoaches riding between them on a regular basis.

Here's a better look at the rock on the right. To me it looks kind of like a duckbill. Today these same two rocks frame a private driveway, shown in the photo below.

I don't have the right angle, but this rock — the one that fills much of the right half of the shot — is the same "duckbill" seen in the shot above. I'm sorry to report that the duck's bill was shaved off to allow for a wider driveway. (You can see in the shot of the trailer above that it's a tight fit.)

Deeper into the backcountry, the Baldwins drive past a familiar rock formation, at the top left in the photo, seen in many old Republic serials and B-Westerns. I call it Smiling Lion. An interesting touch here is the bridge, which apparently was just a temporary construction for this movie that was then quickly torn down. It appears to cross the tiny creek that traverses the Upper Iverson. (I call it Iverson Creek, because what else would it be.)

Here's a modern view of Smiling Lion, again not exactly the right angle — it looks more like a grouchy lion from this angle. But you get the idea.

In a twist that's either ironic or coincidental, depending on how you define those terms (a lot of people get it wrong, so I won't even try), this shot of the family car and trailer continuing the journey across the Upper Iverson contains a barely visible and yet significant sighting. You'll probably have to enlarge the photo (by clicking on it) to see it, but in the background, at the very top of Oat Mountain, toward the left of the photo, is a white circle. This is believed to be a radar dish, part of the Nike missile base that is known to have occupied much of the top of Oat Mountain during the Cold War. The base, known to insiders as LA-88, was operational from 1956 through 1974 as part of the nationwide Nike missile defense system. A detailed history of the Oat Mountain Nike facility can be found here.

Here's a shot of more or less the same section of Oat Mountain in more recent times. The radar dish is no longer seen, although other electronic equipment is visible. During the years since things cooled off with the Soviets, much of the area atop Oat Mountain has been converted to microwave towers for use by cell phones and other mobile devices. If anyone is feeling nostalgic for the "good old days" of Nike missile bases in the hills above L.A., don't be. The Nike base atop Oat Mountain was an artifact of the period before even the 1980s-era Strategic Defense Initiative, when the prevailing doctrine of nuclear defense was "mutually assured destruction" — the same nightmare scenario that plays out in Panic in Year Zero.

Here's another section of Oat Mountain, just to the west of the shot above. (Again, you'll want to enlarge it to see the details.) This one provides a pretty good look at some of the equipment in place today atop the mountain, presumably mostly microwave towers. However, the white building that is the most prominent feature at the top of the hill, seen to the left of center, has been there for decades and does show up sometimes in the productions. I'll post some examples later, but I'm sure I've seen it in Bonanza, among others. I've traditionally assumed it was part of the base, but I don't know what its function is today. I do know that at least part of the property atop Oat Mountain remains in military hands. I've seen a few videos of the former Nike site in recent years (here's one of them) and it appears to be completely dismantled. But I wouldn't be surprised to find out they're still keeping track of things from up there — even if they're no longer ready to fire off a nuclear warhead in the blink of an eye.

One last shot from Panic in Year Zero: Later in the "camping trip from hell," dad and his teenage son — Ray Milland and Frankie Avalon — go hunting, with the rock wonderland that is the Lower Iverson's Upper Gorge in all its glory in the background. This shot is taken from the camera mount in Garden of the Gods.

The Middle Iverson Ranch Set also appears in Panic in Year Zero, and those shots can be seen here. (Scroll down to about the 14th and 15th photos to see the Panic in Year Zero stuff.)

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Middle Iverson Ranch Set: a history in pictures

2011-09-18T23:49:00.000-07:00

One of the most important manmade sets at the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, Calif., was a small cluster of buildings located on the Upper Iverson, usually referred to as the Middle Iverson Ranch Set. It was situated north of what's now the Simi Valley Freeway, above the northern end of Topanga Canyon Boulevard, on land that today holds a condominium complex. The ranch set existed in some form for about 30 years — from roughly 1940 to 1970 — until a huge fire swept through the area from Newhall to Malibu in September 1970 and destroyed most of Iverson’s remaining sets, including what was left of the Middle Iverson Ranch Set.

The ranch set consisted of a variety of buildings over the years, including a main house, at least two different barns at different times, a bunkhouse that received a lot of screen time, and a small shed that was right in the middle of the compound and also appeared on film quite a bit. At least one other small outbuilding also was in place for a short time.

(Click on the photos for a larger view.)

Early Barn

Along with the main house, the original construction of the ranch set (circa 1940-1942) included a barn. This barn was only around for a few years, and is not widely seen in the movies. But it does make a few appearances.

Here’s an early view of the Middle Iverson Ranch Set from Bells of Rosarita (1945), showing the first barn along with a glimpse of the main house (southwest face), at the right, and the shed, at left.

Another early look at the Middle Iverson Ranch Set layout — rough picture quality but showing the set from a more traditional angle, with the main house at the left, the early barn at the right, and the shed in the middle (just above the horses). The shot is from Rough Riders of Cheyenne (1945).

Main House (“Halfway House”)

The main house, often referred to as Halfway House because of its location between the busiest areas of the Lower Iverson and Upper Iverson, was part of the original construction of the Middle Iverson Ranch Set. It was featured in film and TV productions for at least two decades, making one of its earliest appearances on film in 1942, in Outlaws of Boulder Pass. It has been described as having multiple fronts, and it did have two different fronts — one facing southwest and one facing northeast. Both fronts were filmed for movies and television productions. It has occasionally been reported that the house had either three different fronts or four fronts, but these reports appear to be inaccurate. (More about that below.)

The house is seen in a wide variety of productions, including the landmark rock ‘n’ roll movie Don’t Knock the Rock in 1956, and makes one of its later appearances in the nuclear armageddon movie Panic in Year Zero in 1962.

Main house (southwest face), Middle Iverson Ranch Set, as seen in The Millerson Case (1947). This is the most common view of the house.

Main house (northeast face), Middle Iverson Ranch Set, along with the shed, as seen in Buffalo Bill Rides Again (1947). Even though this looks like a smaller house, it's the same building seen in the photo above it, viewed from the opposite side. The non-rectangular shape of the structure is capable of creating the illusion of different-sized buildings.

Here’s another look at the northeast face of the main house. This shot is from The Hills of Utah (1951). The "rake-style" pillars supporting the porch are a key identifier for this side of the building. Picket fences came and went as the years went on, and they tend to have a dramatic impact on the appearance of the house. The same house front that looks like a family residence here looks more like an old Western cabin in the shot above this one.

Obviously a dark shot, but the main house of the Middle Iverson Ranch Set served as a nighttime gathering place for dance-crazed teenagers in Don’t Knock the Rock (1956). The house appears here with the hot rods starting to gather in front of it in a scene from the movie, with the bunkhouse visible at the left. You'll probably have to enlarge the photo (by clicking on it) to see anything.

Main house (southwest face), Middle Iverson Ranch Set, as seen in Gun Duel in Durango (1957). Note that by this time telephone poles had begun to find their way into the backgrounds, as if to underscore that the era of the Western was winding down.

This view also offers a decent look at one side of the house — the northwest face (on the left). One could make an argument that this side could have served as a third "front," as it does have a door. However, shooting it as a front would require an unusually limited shot to hide the rest of the house, and it seems unlikely it would have been used this way. I can't completely rule it out, but I don't think I've ever seen this side used as a front in any production.

Since I first posted this entry, Western movie location expert Tinsley Yarbrough pointed me to an unusual view of the house seen in Black Hills (1948). Here it is:

This may be the closest thing we will see to a use of the northwest face of the house as a "front." In contrast to the shot above this one, from Gun Duel in Durango, here it almost looks as though that side of the house includes a garage, which I don't think is the intent as this is a horse movie. At any rate, this side of the house is featured prominently here in Black Hills, but it still seems clear it represents the side of the house, not the front. The southwest face, largely obscured here but visible at the right of the photo, appears to be the front of the house.

The following shot, also from Black Hills, appears to show people arriving at the true front of the house, depicted as usual by the southwest face:

The main house makes an important appearance in the pilot episode of the TV show The Real McCoys — important because it was such a widely seen and much-loved show, but also symbolically important because it underscored the role of the San Fernando Valley, both in the settling of the greater Los Angeles area and in the booming film and TV industries that played a huge role in the expansion of the city. The building was introduced as the McCoys' house after the family left West Virginia to build a new life in California’s San Fernando Valley. Location purists may be pleased to learn that the house was in fact in the San Fernando Valley, in Chatsworth.

Northeast face of the main house at Middle Iverson, as seen in the 1957 pilot episode of the TV show The Real McCoys. That's the family driving up having just made the trip from West Virginia to their new California farmhouse.

The McCoy family takes a good first look at its new house, which is in pretty bad shape. The scene takes place entirely on the Middle Iverson Ranch Set, and in this shot the shed is visible behind the McCoys.

Later in the pilot episode of The Real McCoys, Grandpappy Amos, played by Walter Brennan, brings his banjo when he comes a-callin’ on a neighbor lady. In another interesting twist from a location standpoint, the neighbor’s house — which is supposed to be some distance away — is played by the other side of the McCoys’ house: the southwest face of the main house at Middle Iverson.

This shot is NOT at Iverson, but at the site that soon became the substitute for the original Iverson house seen in the pilot. As a footnote to the appearance of the Middle Iverson house in the Real McCoys pilot, the show appears to have used the Iverson set only for that one episode (although I have not had a chance to scan the entire series yet). The original site was replaced with the above house and small barn set in subsequent episodes and in the familiar title sequence that opened each episode. I suspect this location might be known to some of you readers, and I would love to hear from you. For now, I can't say where this is, but based on its many appearances in the show it looks more like a location set to me than a studio backlot. Something I find interesting about it is that an attempt was apparently made to make this later version of the McCoys’ house resemble the northeast face of the Middle Iverson main house that appeared in the pilot, including adding the “rake-style” decorations to the support beams for the front porch. I think the visual trick was pretty effective — it took some careful comparisons to determine that this is not the same place.

One of the more intriguing appearances by the Middle Iverson house is in the 1962 Cold War movie Panic in Year Zero, which involves the outbreak of World War III and includes stunning shots of a nuclear bomb falling on Los Angeles. (The money shot of the mushroom cloud, which I plan to post at a later time, was taken from Santa Susana Pass Road, west of the Iverson Movie Ranch, and if you know just where to look you can see the Garden of the Gods in the distance.) Here’s a nice shot of the southwest face of the house, along with two of the young hoodlums who take over the residence in the movie after the atom bomb falls on L.A.

This shot from Panic in Year Zero shows most of the Middle Iverson Ranch Set as it appeared in 1962, including the main house, the later barn at far left, the bunkhouse to its right, and at the far right of the shot, a rarely seen shed to the east of the house. (The view of the much more commonly seen central shed is blocked by the house.) This shot also offers a good look at the southeast end of the main house, establishing that it could not have been used as a house front. This is a really nice shot of the whole spread — I encourage you to click on it to enlarge it. (For an in-depth post about Panic in Year Zero, click here.)

Besides being used extensively for filming, the house was apparently occupied as a residence, but it is unclear who lived there. It’s also unclear exactly when the house disappeared and what happened to it, but it was gone at least by 1969 — outlived by both the Bunkhouse and the second barn.

Like all of the former Middle Iverson Ranch Set, the location where the house stood is now part of a condominium complex off Poema Place, north of the Simi Valley Freeway in Chatsworth, Calif. The exact location of the house is now one of the driveways into the condo complex.

Bunkhouse

The bunkhouse was one of the more enduring sets at Iverson Movie Ranch, being built in about 1947 and lasting until the 1970 fire. It was a regular feature in a string of movies, mostly B-Westerns, and continued to appear regularly after the focus shifted to television.

Here’s a shot of the bunkhouse from an episode of the TV show The Lone Ranger. The episode, The Prince of Buffalo Gap, first aired on April 4, 1957, and was part of the final season of the TV show — the only season that was shot in color. Here you can catch a glimpse of Oat Mountain, the sprawling backdrop to the north of the Iverson Movie Ranch, peeking out above the roofline.

Shed

The Middle Iverson Ranch Set included a variety of minor outbuildings over the years, but by far the most commonly seen one was a shed, or small wooden cabin, that stood right in the middle of the main buildings and survived for most of the life of the set.

Here’s a look at the central shed in 1945, in Rough Riders of Cheyenne.

Late Barn

A second barn went up sometime in the mid- to late 1950s, and for a time the Middle Iverson Ranch Set included three main structures: the main house, the bunkhouse and the late barn. The central shed also remained in place during this period.

Here's a look at the late barn at Middle Iverson in the 1961 movie Gun Street. Like the early barn, the late barn made only a few appearances in the movies and TV.

A similar view of the late barn, in color, in The Cat, released in 1966.

Another shot from The Cat shows the relationship of the late barn, partially visible at far left, to the bunkhouse, in the background at left, and the shed, at far right. Seen in the distance is Oat Mountain, and in front of it are a couple of the distinctive low hills that help identify countless Iverson productions. The 1966 movie The Cat is one of the later productions to be shot at the Iverson Movie Ranch, and one of the very last to feature the Middle Iverson Ranch Set

Identifying markers

While everything that was on the ground in the immediate area of the Middle Iverson Ranch Set is gone now — replaced by a condominium complex — some key markers remain that help pinpoint where the set once stood. Most significantly, Cactus Hill — a fairly large hill that effectively divided Upper Iverson and Lower Iverson during the filming era — remains intact. At the eastern end of Cactus Hill are some large rocks that can be seen in the backgrounds of movie and TV shots of the set.

Here’s an example:

Boulders at the eastern end of Cactus Hill, as seen in Buffalo Bill Rides Again (1947).

Boulders at the eastern end of Cactus Hill, as seen today. Note the large parallelogram-shaped boulder at the top of the photo, just right of center, and the small stacked rock toward the left, both of which are also seen above in the shot from Buffalo Bill Rides Again.

The Gorge Cabin

2011-08-01T17:29:00.000-07:00

Here's a shot from "Billy the Kid in Texas" (1940), an early entry in Producers Releasing Corp.'s Billy the Kid series starring Bob Steele. (He was later replaced by Buster Crabbe, who went on to do most of PRC's Billy the Kid movies.) This is one of the best shots I've seen of the Gorge Cabin, and as a bonus it shows The Wall in the background, along the top of the photo. Potato Rock, which sat atop The Wall, can be seen directly above the point where the wooden and stone sections of the cabin join, at the very top of the photo. The Wall was eventually destroyed to make way for condo development, and some of those condos now occupy the space where the cabin once stood.

The cabin was built mainly of stone — or material that was made to look like stone. (You can't ever be sure with these old movie buildings — the actual construction was typically plaster.) The smaller wooden section on the left was added later. The cabin was located in the Upper Gorge section of the Lower Iverson, in an area that is now filled with condos. It appears mainly (or exclusively) in productions filmed from 1938-1944. According to some researchers, after that period the building was moved to the Upper Iverson — to an area known as Hidden Valley. I believe from that time on it appears in the setting seen here. I've never proved to my satisfaction that it's the same cabin, but it does look similar. This much is certain: The Gorge Cabin disappeared from the Gorge by mid-1944, and later that year an adobe village appeared in the same general location. The adobe village is seen in The Desert Hawk later in 1944, and in other productions of the late 1940s and possibly into the 1950s.

The Gorge Cabin may have appeared as early as 1937, but my first verified sighting of it is this 1938 appearance in Terror of Tiny Town. Whether the two cabins seen in these top two photos are in fact the same building is a matter for some debate. These two angles are comparable, though not exact. In the above shot, the background includes Devil's Doorway (the stone cluster just behind the cabin) and Cactus Hill. The chimney clearly changes location between this shot and the 1940 appearance, but that's not unheard of. I do have a problem with the location of the window next to the chimney in the above shot, which seems farther from the corner of the building than the window in the top shot.

Here's another early appearance by the Gorge Cabin, in the 1940 serial Adventures of Red Ryder. The cabin appears here without the wooden add-on seen in the top photo, from Billy the Kid in Texas the same year. That pinpoints the addition, indicating it must have been done in 1940.

One more view of the cabin, this one from The Son of Davy Crockett (1941). The wooden addition was in place at this time, but isn't seen in the shot (it would be just off camera, to the left), and is only seen in partial glimpses in the film. It's unclear whether it was the intent of the filmmakers to avoid showing that addition.

The Gorge Cabin can be seen in a number of other productions as well, including Billy the Kid Wanted (1941), Outlaws of Boulder Pass (1942), Ride 'em Cowboy (1942) and Death Rides the Plains (1943).

It's worth noting that a couple of completely different cabins can also be seen in the Upper Gorge, in the same general area as the main Gorge Cabin, at different times — one very early cabin (circa 1933) and one much later cabin (circa 1960).

The Early Gorge Cabin — a small, crude wooden structure — turns up in Unknown Valley (1933), as seen here.

The Late Gorge Cabin, seen in One Foot in Hell (1960) and shown in the above photo, is probably a partial structure — missing one or two walls — as it appears to have been used for interior shots in the film, as well as for exteriors. It was part of a set that also included a stable, which is partially seen in the foreground in the above shot. The screen shot also shows part of Crown Rock, at far left, and the Devil's Doorway cluster, behind the cabin. The rocks seen here are all still in place, among the condos off Redmesa Road.

Another shot from One Foot in Hell, this one is shot from the interior of the Late Gorge Cabin, which may have only been in place for this one movie. With the door open, we can see Crown Rock outside, proving that the shoot was done on location. That means the cabin probably had some missing walls and was effectively a soundstage rather than an actual cabin, as it wouldn't have been possible to pull off this shoot inside the confines of a small room.

Iverson's mysterious "Ruins"

2011-06-24T10:36:00.000-07:00

Soon after I began exploring the Iverson Movie Ranch several years ago, I ran across an intriguing bit of crumbling stone, brick and tile that came to be known simply as the Ruins. It's a relatively small and unimposing bit of construction by Iverson standards, but captured my imagination nonetheless. Here's a view of most of the Ruins, along with the impressive rock that was its main neighbor, which I call Hangdog. (As always, you may want to click on the photos to enlarge them.)

Besides the Ruins at the right and the multifaceted Hangdog at the left, the above photo shows a portion of the Old Folks House (sometimes called simply the House), the white building with the red tile roof, directly above the ruins, along with some misc. San Fernando Valley development in the background. Also visible in the distance, at top left, is part of Oat Mountain, which is often seen in the movies in the background of chases and other footage shot at Iverson. Directly above Hangdog — which appears in countless movies, by the way (more about that elsewhere) — are a number of other rocks that also make appearances in many productions, which are also talked about elsewhere.

That's a little bit of Hangdog — its "eyebrow and eyelid," if you will — peering out over a portion of the Ruins in the above shot.

I've heard various rumors about the Ruins since the initial discovery, but not much in the way of concrete information. The consensus is it was probably NOT built for the movies, which is in contrast to almost all other construction at the Iverson Movie Ranch. I've never seen it in any productions, although I continue to look for it. And no one else seems to know of any movie or TV sightings of it either.

Here's a shot of more of the Ruins with Woolly Mammoth in the background. (It gets its name from its appearance from a different angle than the one seen here. You'll find it here.) From this angle the rock has been described as looking like a saddlehorn (but not to be confused with Saddlehorn Rock, which can be seen here), and it is also sometimes called the Vultura's Trail Rock.

I generally consider the construction of the Ruins to be associated with the Old Folks House — a residence on the Lower Iverson that was built around the 1930s and stood until the Porter Ranch Fire (also known as the Sesnon Fire) swept through parts of Iverson in October 2008. The House, which was generally not considered to be part of film productions other than very occasionally and tangentially, is gone now, having been destroyed by that fire. For the last many years of its life, it was not lived in, and by the end it was pretty decayed. Not long after the house burned down — but unrelated to the fire, as far as I know — someone also decided to tear down what was left of the Ruins.

Speaking of fire, here's a firepit that was found inside the area of the ruins, supporting the theory that it may have been some sort of patio and barbecue area.

Fortunately, I got photos of both the Ruins and the House before it was too late. I'll deal with the House in another entry. Suffice for now to say that the House, or Old Folks House, was built for the original Iverson couple, Karl and Augusta, to spend their waning years. It was later occupied by their son Joe, who ran the Lower Iverson through much of the peak filming period of the 1930s through 1950s. I figure at some point whoever was living in the House, probably Joe, decided to build the odd structure for some reason — maybe just as a barbecue area. Then again, maybe it was built for a movie that hasn't turned up yet.

Here's another portion of the Ruins that shows some of the tile work. This looks like it would have ended up being where everyone sat, but whether it was built with that in mind, who knows?

The ruins were located in something of a "famous" area for fans of the old Republic serials, as they were right near where the fake front stood for Vultura's Palace (also known as Vultura's Temple) in the landmark 1942 serial The Perils of Nyoka (which is a landmark not only because it is considered one of the best Republic serials, but also, for location aficionados, it's an orgy of Iverson sightings from start to finish). You can find more about Vultura's Palace here, and more about the rock I call Hangdog, which connects the Vultura's Palace front with the Ruins (but not at the same time — the Ruins were not built yet when Perils was shot), here.

If anyone has additional insights into the Ruins, I would love to hear from you. Either way, I hope you'll leave a comment! Thanks.

Sorting Out Iverson's Many "Indian Heads"

2011-03-22T19:19:00.000-07:00

At least four different rocks on the former Iverson Movie Ranch have been called "Indian Head" at various times, while a number of other rocks found at the site look so much like Indian heads that they seem to be begging for the name. Here's a rundown of some of Iverson's Indian heads:

Indian Head in Garden of the Gods (also known as Tower Rock)

Shown in a screen shot from the 1942 Republic serial "Perils of Nyoka," this is the most famous of Iverson's "Indian Heads," and it is this view, in my opinion, that presents the rock looking most like an Indian Head. It is one of the most widely filmed rocks at Iverson (and therefore one of the most widely filmed rocks in movie and TV history). It is typically paired with its larger neighbor, commonly called Eagle Beak but also known as Sphinx. The pair make a legendary appearance in John Ford's 1939 Western "Stagecoach," as seen here:

Indian Head and Eagle Beak appear in the background as the stagecoach arrives at Apache Wells. That's Indian Head (or Tower Rock) above and slightly to the left of the stage, and the larger Eagle Beak (or Sphinx) above and to the right of the stage. Click here for more about the locations in "Stagecoach."

Above is a recent shot showing what Indian Head and Eagle Beak look like today. They're located on what used to be the Lower Iverson, in a section called Garden of the Gods, which is known for its large, charismatic sandstone boulders — especially Eagle Beak and Indian Head. The area has been preserved as a park and is open to the public. It's on Redmesa Road just north of Santa Susana Pass Road in Chatsworth, Calif. However, the adjacent area went condo years ago, and the open space in front of the stage in the "Stagecoach" shot above is now filled with a tract of condominiums, as is the spot where the Apache Wells outpost once stood.

I learned recently that the Iverson family referred to the Indian Head rock seen in the above photos as "Tower Rock" during the filming era, and I've begun to adopt that name. "Tower Rock" has a number of advantages: Anything that comes from the Iverson family has more authenticity to it, and in this case it avoids using a name — Indian Head — that can cause confusion because it has been given to so many different rocks at Iverson. And there's another factor here: The name Indian Head, as given to the rock seen in all of the above photos, was apparently a mistake. Legend has it that both Indian Head and Eagle Beak acquired those names after being confused with two other rocks at Iverson known as Indian Head (see below) and Eagle Beak Rock.

Indian Head on the Upper Iverson (also known as Wrench Rock)

This gargoyle rock found on the former Upper Iverson Movie Ranch — shown here in the 1949 Roy Rogers movie "The Golden Stallion" — is a personal favorite. In the early days of my Iverson research I called it "Bobby," for reasons that would be too hard to explain although you can still find clues elsewhere in the blog. I eventually learned that "Bobby" was well established as an Iverson movie rock and already had a number of other names, including Indian Head, Upper Indian Head and Wrench Rock. These days I tend to use Wrench Rock even though it's probably the least glamorous of all the choices. It avoids confusion with all the other Indian Heads, and after all, I can see where the name comes from. But I do keep a place in my heart for "Bobby."

Incidentally, that's also Wrench Rock, or Indian Head ... OK, Bobby ... at the top of the page, seen from the other side, which is the more common movie view. That shot is from "Fury at Showdown" (1957).

Lone Ranger Rock — once known as Indian Head

The third in our list of Iverson's "Indian Head" rocks is one of the most familiar features on the ranch, but its original name has been largely forgotten. In fact, this rock is so universally recognized as Lone Ranger Rock that it is hard to believe it ever had a different name. But it makes sense: The Lone Ranger didn't ride up on Silver for his trademark opening to the TV show until 1949, well beyond the midway point of Iverson's filming heyday. I generally think of 1936-1959 as the peak years, with the 1950s consisting predominantly of TV production. The movie ranch, the Lower Iverson and Iverson Gorge, where Lone Ranger Rock is located (it's easy to find, just east of Redmesa Road), already had a lot of movie mileage under their belts by the time Lone Ranger Rock became Lone Ranger Rock. Before that, it was known as Indian Head. At least, that's what I was told by a reliable source.

Another familiar rock with an unfamiliar name: Sphinx, Eagle Beak ... and Indian Head? Yes!

Here's where things might get a little confusing, if it's not already too late. The rock known as Eagle Beak or Sphinx, seen above, which was often filmed in tandem with its taller partner Indian Head, or Tower Rock (which you can see a bit of on the left in the above shot, as well as in several of the shots higher up in this post), has itself been called Indian Head. The 1948 Monogram B-Western "Overland Trails," starring Johnny Mack Brown, which is the source of the screen shot above, is to blame. One of the key plot elements in the movie concerns trying to find a hidden mine. The mine is located near a waterhole, and there's an early clue about an Indian watching over it. Later we find out the miner has written in a letter to his wife, "There's a rock above the waterhole that looks just like an Indian head." Of course the miner is out of the picture by now — I don't remember specifically but I assume he gets killed — and the search is on to find that Indian head and thereby locate the mine. Fast-forward to later in the picture and about the time we're ready to give up, Johnny Mack Brown says to his partner, "Hey Dusty, look — look at that rock. Doesn't that look like an Indian head to you?" And Dusty says, "Well, it sure does!" And it turns out what they're looking at is the screen shot above — the rock we now know as Eagle Beak or Sphinx. With that kind of attention being paid to it in the movie — any actual discussion of the rocks in the movies is rare — it has to be taken seriously. So Sphinx, too, has a claim to the name "Indian Head." And, well, it does look like a head, after all.

Batman Rock

What about the rocks at Iverson that look even more like Indian heads than most of those seen above, but have never been called "Indian Head" (at least, as far as anyone knows)? Probably the prime example is Batman Rock, shown above in a scene from "Stagecoach." To my eye it looks as though it could have come right off the Buffalo Nickel. Its appearance in the movie is part of the "reveal" of the ruins of the Lee's Ferry station, which has been destroyed in an attack by ... who else, Indians. I suspect the irony wasn't lost on "Stagecoach" director John Ford, and that the placement of the ruins directly below the big chief (not yet known as Batman Rock) was no accident.

Batman Rock is named after its appearance in Columbia's "Batman" serials of the 1940s. I can't help wondering whether the filmmakers who shot it for Westerns back in The Day had their own names for it. At any rate, it's a spectacular rock, even today — after the vegetation has grown up around it and largely blocked the view of its face. These days it presides over a driveway into the condo area just north of Garden of the Gods, and despite everything it still projects strength and a certain quiet dignity.

Wild Bill Hickok's gravesite

2011-03-01T22:36:00.000-08:00

OK, it's only his MOVIE grave, but still, it's pretty cool. Here's the grave as seen in the 1950 movie "Calamity Jane and the Texan," with a couple of characters who figured into Wild Bill Hickok's real life — Calamity Jane, played by Evelyn Ankers, and Colorado Charlie Utter, played by Lee "Lasses" White — paying their respects.

Here's the gravesite today, on the former Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, Calif. The exact location of the grave is overgrown with sagebrush, but the rocks in the background still look pretty much the same.

In the movie, which is also known by the title "The Texan Meets Calamity Jane," they spelled Hickok's name wrong on his tombstone, adding the extra "c" to come up with Hickock — presumably a common mistake. They did get other details right, including his death at the hands of Jack McCall in Deadwood, in the Black Hills, on Aug. 2, 1876.

Wild Bill, whose real name was James Butler Hickok, was 39 at the time of his death. History notes that Hickok was playing poker at Nuttal & Mann's Saloon in Deadwood when McCall shot him in the head. According to legend, Hickok was holding aces and eights, all black — a poker hand that since this infamous shooting has been known as the "dead man's hand."