Vasquez Rocks, Agua Dulce, Calif.
The above photo is a contemporary shot of the stunning Vasquez Rocks, just north of Los Angeles, located more or less between the Santa Clarita Valley and the Antelope Valley. In case you're unfamiliar with the rocks and their scale, it's a massive formation. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you may be able to make out a tiny group of people near the middle of the shot, positioned atop the recessed portion of the rock.
Tiburcio Vasquez
The rocks are named after the bandit Tiburcio Vasquez, who, legend has it, hid out there in the 1870s. A great many movies and TV shows have been shot at the site over the years — not quite approaching the sheer volume of productions shot at Iverson, but still pretty respectable. Even today you can sometimes spot new TV commercials featuring the distinctively angular rocks of Vasquez. Car companies are especially fond of shooting their ads at the location.
Captain Kirk fights the Gorn at Vasquez Rocks in the "Star Trek" episode "Arena" (1967)
Among the hundreds of productions shot there, a few of the more famous ones are "Blazing Saddles," the "Flintstones" live-action films — where the rocks provide the backdrop for the town of Bedrock — and some episodes of the original "Star Trek" TV show.
Melody Ranch — before it was destroyed by fire in 1962
Santa Clarita Valley natives are rightfully proud of their area's movie history, which, like that of Iverson in Chatsworth, goes all the way back to the silent era. Unlike Chatsworth — where development took hold faster than it did in the more remote Santa Clarita area — the SCV still has a few working movie ranches, with Disney's Golden Oak Ranch and the rebuilt Melody Ranch among the main ones.
Promo still for "Death Valley Rangers" (1943): Incorrectly labeled on scvhistory.com
A while back I discovered a mistake on SCVHistory.com, where a 1943 photo of some early Western actors at Corriganville in Simi Valley, seen above, was attributed to Vasquez Rocks — about 35 miles away. Most site visitors would never notice the mistake, even though the rock formations don't look much like Vasquez Rocks. But any film location researcher familiar with Simi Valley and the Santa Susana Mountains — and there are a few of us — would easily recognize the rocky formation toward the left of the shot. The photo is a promotional still from the 1943 Monogram Western "Death Valley Rangers," shot at Corriganville.
Corriganville's Fort Apache, with Fort Apache Rock in background
The formation, which has been known as Fort Apache Rock for decades, is seen in the backgrounds of countless productions filmed at Corriganville. The above screen shot is just one example, from the 1952 Ben Johnson movie "Wild Stallion." Fort Apache Rock was easy to spot behind Corriganville's Fort Apache, as in the above shot, or looming over many of the movie ranch's chase roads. There's no mistaking that it's the same formation seen in the shot of the movie cowboys above it.
Interpretive sign at Corriganville
Underscoring the point that there's no question about this sighting, Fort Apache Rock even appears on one of those "interpretive signs" at the former site of Fort Apache, which is now part of Corriganville Regional Park. A couple of the other hills seen in the SCV Historical Society photo can also be seen here.
I made an attempt at the time to let the SCV Historical Society know about the mistake, but I never heard back. Nothing alarming about any of that — people are busy these days, and who has time for that sort of thing? Unfortunately, I soon realized that, as tends to happen in the digital age, the misinformation had already found its way all over the Internet.
John Boston's Santa Clarita Valley book, with the wrong photo on the cover
Sadly, one place the errant photo appears is right on the cover of what I'm sure is a terrific book, "Santa Clarita Valley," part of the "Images of America" series. Poor John Boston, author of the book. He's a highly respected SCV historian, known as "Mr. Santa Clarita Valley," and from all accounts, a great guy. And it doesn't seem to me that any of this is his fault. He apparently got his photos from the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society, which is co-credited on the book. I'll just say that if I had written a book about, oh, say Chatsworth, and then found out the cover actually had a picture of Moorpark ... well, let's just say it would bug me.
Magic Johnson, focus of the "Magic Johnson Effect"
My heart goes out to the people involved in the book and the website. These kinds of mistakes are all too easy to make. The only way to be sure we avoid them would be to not do anything, and that's no good. I often cite as an example what I call the "Magic Johnson Effect." It's well-known that Magic led the Lakers to nine NBA Finals and five NBA championships during his Hall of Fame career, but it's less well-known that he also led the NBA in turnovers. The point is he made things happen, and when you do that, sometimes things go wrong ... and it's OK.
Off the Beaten Path is a series of posts that are not specifically focused on the usual subject matter of this blog, the Iverson Movie Ranch. Past subjects have included Bell Ranch, Pioneertown and other old filming locations. You can go directly to the Off the Beaten Path posts by looking up the term "Off the Beaten Path" in the long index of labels at the right of the page, or by clicking here.
2 comments:
Thank you for correcting the rock formation as being Corriganville. My family and I knew Ray Corrigan and visited the ranch many times. I think the importance is being ignored. There were many movies made there and that shouldn't be forgotten. Corriganville brought much happiness when there were not many outdoor places to visit at the time.
You said it, JM! I felt like the luckiest kid in the world when I got to go there a few times in the early 1960s. Those are some of my favorite childhood memories. These days I'm able to appreciate it in a whole new way as a film historian.
Thanks for your comment!
... SN
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