The late Jim Rogers made this paean to Westerns possible.
It was in 1920, 17 years after the groundbreaking film The Great Train Robbery hit the big screen, that Hollywood discovered a perfect shooting location for Westerns and other films—the jumbled rocks of the Alabama Hills (backdropped by the snowcapped Sierra Nevada) near Lone Pine in eastern California’s Owens Valley. Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, the rotund actor-comedian, rode the hills that year in the silent Western The Round-Up, and by 1960 the site had appeared in more than 300 movies and TV series. When the Western genre went into decline, filmmakers used the location for various other projects, including two Star Trek films, Tremors, Gladiator, Dinosaur, Iron Man and Quentin Tarantino’s 2012 Western/ Southern Django Unchained.
Just east of the hills is the Beverly and Jim Rogers Lone Pine Film History Museum, dedicated to preserving and celebrating the Westerns shot in the region as well as the iconic cinema cowboy. The museum opened in 2006, thanks to the cooperation and financial support of Beverly and Jim Rogers and the eastern Sierra community. Rogers, a broadcasting entrepreneur, also contributed many of the items on display. The 10,500-square-foot facility showcases invaluable film memorabilia, including scores of hats, guns, costumes, props and signed movie scripts. An 85-seat movie theater adds to the visual experience with a recurring 15-minute documentary that looks at the roots of Western film, highlights movies made in the area and points out Lone Pine’s significance to the industry. The museum also displays vintage posters. So the mission lives on, although Jim Rogers, 75, died in June at his Las Vegas, Nev., home.
Legendary Western director John Ford, despite his love of Monument Valley, shot footage in the Alabama Hills and nearby Death Valley for his 1948 Western 3 Godfathers, starring John Wayne. Director Budd Boetticher made a series of Randolph Scott Westerns—Seven Men From Now (1956), The Tall T (1957), Ride Lonesome (1959) and Comanche Station (1960)—set largely amid the iconic rocks of the hills. Director Tarantino was so taken with the area and the museum that he shot several scenes for Django Unchained on location and donated to the museum his director’s chair, a signed script and the movie’s dentist wagon, which graces the lobby alongside a beautifully preserved stagecoach.
Displays within cover the spectrum of Western cinema from the early silent films to some of the top-notch Westerns of the 1950s and later. One wall of the museum is devoted to famous cowboy hats worn (some even signed) by the likes of Wayne, Audie Murphy and Roy Rogers. Costumes in the collection include articles from The Shootist (1976)— Wayne’s final film—and a coat worn by Errol Flynn in the 1950 adventure film Kim, filmed on location in India and in the Alabama Hills, for its resemblance to the Khyber Pass. The museum’s extensive gun collection includes a 1905 Colt Bisley .45 revolver with customized grips that Gary Cooper gave to Murphy in 1946. Murphy, decorated World War II veteran and actor, merits his own display. He participated in the production stages and chose the locations for several of the movies in which he starred. Three of his films—Hell Bent for Leather (1960), Posse From Hell (1961) and Showdown (1963)—are Lone Piners. Hollywood horses, such as Rogers’ Trigger and Gene Autry’s Champion, get their due.
One exhibit centers on Lone Ranger and his faithful companion Tonto. A 1938 serial and the TV series (1949–57) were shot at Lone Pine, as was Tonto’s childhood flashback scene in 2013’s The Lone Ranger. Another exhibit follows Hopalong Cassidy, a character who appeared in 31 films shot in and around Lone Pine. The museum provides a self-guided tour map of “Movie Road,” a few minutes drive west in the Alabama Hills, which takes in 10 locations from classic films. The annual Lone Pine Film Festival celebrates its 25th anniversary in October. The museum is at 701 S. Main St. (U.S. 395) in Lone Pine, a three-hour drive north of Los Angeles. For more information call 760-876-9909 or visit www .lonepinefilmhistorymuseum.org.
Originally published in the December 2014 issue of Wild West. To subscribe, click here.