"Wee Willie Winkie" (1937): The Iverson Movie Ranch comes of age
Set in colonial India, John Ford's 1937 movie "Wee Willie Winkie" probably did more than any other production to raise the profile of the Iverson Movie Ranch and help push it toward "mega-location" status.
Shirley Temple and Victor McLaglen on the Iverson Ranch for "Wee Willie Winkie"
The diminutive Shirley Temple, a mere 8 years old during the film's production, was at the height of her popularity, riding out a four-year reign (1935-1938) as the No. 1 box-office draw in the world.
Director John Ford
Ford was no slouch either. Most of his signature films were still to come — "Stagecoach" and "The Grapes of Wrath" among them, both to be filmed on the Iverson Ranch. But 20 years into his directorial career, his ascent into the pantheon of great American film directors was already being charted.
Ford poses with one of what would eventually be four Oscars for Best Director
Ford had just won his first of four Best Director Oscars the previous year for "The Informer," giving him added leverage as he was being courted to direct "Wee Willie Winkie."
John Ford tolerates Shirley Temple on the "Wee Willie Winkie" set
Cesar Romero as Khoda Khan, in his mountain headquarters with Shirley Temple
Among the enticements were a big-name cast — including Ford's pal McLaglen along with Cesar Romero, June Lang and C. Aubrey Smith — and at least equally important, a sizable budget for building sets.
Ford's sprawling India Fort (production still from "Wee Willie Winkie")
On the latter point, Ford didn't need much encouragement. He dove right into what would become a four-month construction project, building not one but two expansive sets on the Iverson Ranch — the India Fort at Sheep Flats and Khan's mountain stronghold about a quarter-mile to the southwest, in the Iverson Gorge.
Looking southwest through the gate from Khan's mountain stronghold (production still)
The big-budget project was tracked closely in trade magazines from pre-production through filming in early 1937, generating attention within the industry for the Iverson Movie Ranch.
When the movie went into wide release in July 1937, it was met with a reasonably warm reception by critics, but more to the point, throngs of ticket buyers showed up at the box office.
One thing the critics especially liked was the location work done on the Iverson Movie Ranch. In a review by Variety, the publication cited the movie's "realistic and elaborate backgrounds." The film also received an Oscar nomination for art direction.
The India Fort in 1937 (Iverson family photo)
Both the India Fort and the mountain stronghold have been discussed previously on this blog. You can click here for an in-depth look at the mountain stronghold and surrounding Gorge rocks, published in 2019, and if you're truly hardcore, click here to read a post from 2014 that includes more photos of the India Fort.
Khoda Khan's mountain fortress in the Iverson Gorge
"Wee Willie Winkie's" high profile, along with the major role played by the Iverson
Movie Ranch — and an upswing in the film industry as a whole in the
1930s — added up to a surge in business for the movie ranch.
The Iverson Movie Ranch doubles in size in May 1937
The increased attention helped convince the Iverson family that it was time to expand their operation. In May 1937, just a few weeks after production wrapped on "Winkie" and even before the movie opened, the Iversons purchased 160 acres of land immediately north of their existing property, doubling the size of the ranch.
Locations of the two main sets for "Wee Willie Winkie" on the Lower Iverson
Zeroing in on the Lower Iverson in its present-day configuration, we can identify the two locations where the main sets for "Wee Willie Winkie" were built in late 1936 and early 1937.
An Iverson family photo from late 1936 or early 1937 features the third set, with an unknown woman standing in front of it. In the movie this set served as Khan's headquarters, but in the real world it was built some distance from the rest of his mountain fortress, near the edge of a cliff.
Other family photos from the 1930s provide additional context. This photo of the Iverson Gorge, again from the period when "Wee Willie Winkie" was filming, may have been taken to showcase the new road through the Gorge.
The deep gorge along today's Redmesa Road was called the "Steep Canyon" by the Iverson family, and they referred to the road through it as "Steep Canyon Road."
Construction of the Steep Canyon Road was one of the many projects of Joe Iverson, the movie ranch's industrious and singularly hands-on head honcho, who ran the location ranch for the better part of six decades.
The road had recently been completed around the time "Wee Willie Winkie" was on site. You can tell it was still pretty new in 1937 because the stone buttressing is all perfectly lined up.
When Gene Autry drove his "Pack Train" down the same road about 16 years later, the road was still in decent shape. But already, a few of the stones had begun to migrate down the slope.
Much of the stone buttressing remains in place today, although it has been falling apart for 80-plus years, and like most of us, these days it's showing its age.
Looking again at the widest version of the 1937 photo, we can just make out the towers of Khoda Khan's mountain fortress toward the left.
A closer look at Khan's fortress
Another family photo taken from a slightly different angle provides a better look at the two main towers, along with several of the rock features of the Upper Gorge.
Promotional photos and production stills for "Wee Willie Winkie" offer a much more detailed look at the set. This one shows the main tower, just left of center, along with a "distressed" tower toward the right.
The Iverson Gorge in 1937: Two separate "Wee Willie Winkie" sets
In the wider photo, the top of the tower from the "third set" is visible — just barely — peeking out over some rocks near the top of a hill. The photo shows that the set was positioned well apart from the main fortress.
The third set, ca. 1937: Khan's headquarters, looking north (Iverson family photo)
This Iverson family photo provides a good look at the hilltop tower, along with a stairway next to it. An unknown woman dressed in dark clothes can be seen posing on the stairs, although she's easy to miss.
A distinctive pointed rock helps mark the former location of the "Wee Willie Winkie" set
Which brings us to this beauty — one of the Iverson Movie Ranch's hidden gems. For all its star quality, the pointed rock was rarely filmed. I suppose it comes down to location, location and location, and ... it's not in the best location for a movie rock.
The pointed rock, which I usually refer to as "that pointed rock," or ... "the pointed rock up by Jaunty Sailor," has found its way into only a handful of productions. Before it turned up in the midst of the hidden "Wee Willie Winkie" set, the rock's appearance in this promo still for "Roarin' Lead" may have been its best moment.
But I'll always be grateful to the pointed rock for helping to identify the Iverson Ranch as the filming location for the obscure Bible movie "We Too Receive." The rock is just about the only recognizable Iverson feature in the movie.
The rock has survived, tempting me to make a lot of "point" puns — It's still on point, it remains sharp as a tack, etc. I'll let it go, but I do want to "point" out: Since I never got around to giving this underappreciated gem a "real" name, if you have any suggestions, please comment or email me and we'll try to tie up that loose end.
I mentioned that the rock is in a bad location, and that's still true today. It's not simply that it's hard to get to and hard to find, but its location near the edge of a cliff makes expeditions to the site somewhat treacherous.
Of course, the word "treacherous" can have the opposite of the desired effect, and a certain faction out there will immediately try to go there. Suit yourself, but if you plummet to your death or worse, I did warn you.
The main reason I wanted to bring up the perilous nature of the location is because I found it somewhat shocking that John Ford's "Wee Willie Winkie" set builders opted to put up a tower in that particular spot, of all places.
But build it there they did, and based on evidence that can still be found at the location — such as hunks of concrete that apparently held support cables in place — it was a bit of an engineering marvel.
Other rocks in the set area also retain scars from their tower trauma of 1937. I can't fully explain the engineering, but clearly the rocks were altered so they could be incorporated into the support system for the tower.
Artifacts from the tower — and especially from its supporting cables — can be found throughout the area. Here movie historian Cliff Roberts points out another of the apparent cable seats in the rocks.
Considering all the effort that went into creating the tower set, I was surprised to find that the tower barely made it into the movie. My theory is that when all was said and done, nobody really wanted to be up there — and I'm sure the producers didn't want to have to deal with the liability if the thing collapsed and killed a bunch of extras.
This brief shot of the tower, seen through the netted ceiling of Khan's headquarters, is one of only about two shots of the tower in the movie. The shot comes near the end of the movie after Winkie has dealt a blow to the war effort.
Grandpa turns up at the headquarters of his bitter enemy to retrieve his granddaughter
This brief shot of the tower, seen through the netted ceiling of Khan's headquarters, is one of only about two shots of the tower in the movie. The shot comes near the end of the movie after Winkie has dealt a blow to the war effort.
They did manage to talk a few extras into posing at the top of the tower, weapons drawn, for a few seconds. It wouldn't surprise me if the soldiers needed a change of underwear following this shot.
The inside of the headquarters building is a different story. The bulk of the action shot at the hidden filming location takes place inside this room — and the backgrounds confirm that the interiors were filmed on location.
The room is essentially Khan's bedroom, but it also functions as a place where his chieftains can hang around and laugh at dumb stuff. I am pretty sure they were all smoking something.
Once Shirley Temple shows up, her Winkie character becomes the main focal point of the hilarity.
At one point Shirley gets so fed up with the chieftains over all the dumb stuff they're laughing at, she throws her banana on the floor. She also tells them they're all mean — which only makes them laugh that much harder.
Winkie and Khan have a heart-to-heart
The bedroom area is also where Shirley Temple tries to talk Khan out of waging war against her grandfather.
A mildly disturbing sequence takes place just outside the mountaintop headquarters, where some of Khan's men throw a guy over a wall, presumably to his death — much to the disapproval of Wee Willie Winkie.
The guy who gets the heave-ho is Mohammet Dihn, played by Willie Fung. His "crime" was apparently bringing Wee Willie Winkie to Khan, which hardly seems fair since it all worked out really well — for everyone except Dihn.
On a recent visit to the site, I made an attempt to match up the background from the "Fung gets flung" sequence with features visible to the south of the Iverson Ranch.
I didn't manage to get just the right angle, but I was in the ballpark.
It's movie time! You can see the entire sequence at Khan's headquarters in the 8-minute clip below, which I've posted before. The clip includes BOTH of the major "flingings" — Willie Fung and the banana. Enjoy!
