Remembering Bill Sasser, movie history pioneer, prolific video documentarian, Iverson Movie Ranch enthusiast

Bill Sasser

I recently received the sad news that my friend Bill Sasser, an accomplished film historian and a longtime fan of the Iverson Movie Ranch, has died.

Bill Sasser on the Iverson Ranch in 2009 

Bill was one of the first major location researchers I got to know back when I was getting started on my own full dive into movie history about 10 years ago. Even though we lived on opposite coasts, we kept in touch and collaborated when we could, connecting over our shared obsession with the Iverson Ranch.

"Iverson Summit," 2009: Bill Sasser, left, and Jerry England on the Nyoka Summit

Bill traveled to California almost every year from his home in Virginia, specifically to visit movie sites. His annual Iverson visit presented an opportunity for some heavyweight movie historians to gather — and gave me, as an upstart Iverson researcher, a chance to tag along and learn from the masters.


"Iverson Movie Ranch - Then and Now" — a 7-minute Bill Sasser YouTube video from 2008

Bill captured much of his research on video, including constantly expanding his famous "Iverson DVD" over the years. The last time I received the latest updated version from Bill, it ran more than three hours.


"Callaway at Iverson's" (Posted by Bill Sasser in 2010)

Bill posted one of my favorite Iverson Movie Ranch clips, from the 1951 MGM movie "Callaway Went Thataway." The clip pays tribute both to the cliches of the cowboy movie and to Iverson's widely filmed rock features.


"Gold Raiders Rock"

Bill put together a quick "then and now" focusing on the Upper Iverson feature known as Gold Raiders Rock, posted in 2011. I believe it was Bill who came up with the rock's name.


"Iversons Rock"

Most of this clip comes from the 1937 Shirley Temple movie "Wee Willie Winkie," and the clip includes a "then and now" on the Pirate Ship.


"Gun Belt"

Footage posted by Bill from the 1953 Western "Gun Belt" showcases the rocktabulous South Rim of the Upper Iverson, including location aficionado favorites Wrench Rock, Turtle Rock, the Molar, Ambush Rock and Ambush Pass — plus a few seconds at the end of something that looks to me like the Conejo Valley.


"Desert Gold"

Here's some eerily silent footage of a shootout in the 1936 Buster Crabbe Western "Desert Gold," spotlighting a bunch of familiar Lower Iverson features along with nearby Stoney Point.


"Tornado Arch"

This one's just a rough cut with three clips on a formation I usually hear referred to as "Tornado's Cave," which remains in place today in the Iverson Gorge. Bill posted this back in 2011.


"Stacked Rock & Center Rock"

This clip features the old Western town set on the Lower Iverson, including Pond Rock and, at the very end, a quick look at Center Rock.


"Law of the Canyon" (1947)

In this YouTube clip, Bill highlights the weird two-tone fake mine near the Grove Cabin.


"Relay Station" ("The Plunderers," 1948)

Just one more video from Bill — this one has color footage from "The Plunderers" showing a lot of the Saddlehorn Relay Station with some fake rocks sprinkled in.

Bill has more videos of the Iverson Movie Ranch and other filming locations posted on his YouTube account, which you can go to by clicking here, and a few items on his Google+ page, which is found here.

Bill Sasser, left, with Williamsburg Film Festival Lifetime Achievement recipient Grady Franklin, 2010

Back home in Virginia, Bill poured much of his energy over the years into the Williamsburg Film Festival, and was one of the prime movers behind the event's success.

But my own fondest memories of Bill are about seeing him among the rocks at Iverson, where he will be sadly missed. Keep on a-rockin', Bill!

More Iverson Movie Ranch videos: "Cripple Creek"

Below are a couple more Iverson videos posted by film historian Bill Sasser — both from the 1952 Columbia Western "Cripple Creek." You can see some of Bill's other clips in a recent post found here.


This brief clip offers a look at Hangover Shack on the Lower Iverson. The shack was named after Hangover Rock, which can be seen in the bottom photo in an earlier post, found here. That photo, part of the introductory post for this blog, shows Hangover Rock in 2008, with an African hut featured in the NBC TV series "Heroes." The hut was set up in the same general area where Hangover Shack was previously located — the shack would have been to the left of the hut in the photo, if it were still around. Hangover Shack was one of the longest-surviving buildings at Iverson, seen in productions as late as 1996 — although it was in tumble-down condition in later appearances.


Another short clip from "Cripple Creek," this one shifts to the Upper Iverson and focuses on a water feature that appears to have been created just for this movie — a waterfall trickling down the f-clef section of the "T-Cliff," aka "The Cliff." Waterfalls were set up in the same spot for other productions, but as soon as the production moves on, the waterfall goes away. In the "Cripple Creek" clip, the waterfall tumbles into a small manmade pond directly in front of Wrench Rock. This pond appears to be an expanded version of a more common water feature I call the Reflecting Pool, which is below the Cliff and is set off by a concrete berm. The main part of the Reflecting Pool is still in place on the South Rim — usually just as a concrete berm, although it does become a pool again when it gets enough rain.

Wrench Rock does not appear in the clip, but you can see it here.

The more accepted name for the cliff, albeit admittedly obvious, is ... "The Cliff." My alternate name the "T-Cliff" refers to a distinctive T-shaped marking near the cliff's western end. You can see other posts about it here. The f-clef designation for the area where the waterfall trickles down in the above clip stems from the feature's resemblance to the shape of the f-clef musical notation and the f-shaped sound hole found in some guitars and mandolins.

My guess is the waterfall is a low-end special effect along the lines of someone standing at the top of the cliff emptying buckets, as the filming areas at Iverson generally didn't include running water.

Bill Sasser's YouTube channel can be seen here.

Some cool Iverson Movie Ranch videos

Film historian Bill Sasser has been doing research for years on Western movie locations and has put up some terrific video clips on YouTube. Many of them feature the Iverson Movie Ranch, but Bill's prolific research encompasses a wide range of locations — from the other major filming sites, such as Lone Pine and Corriganville, to some of the less widely known ones, such as Beale's Cut and Walker Ranch.

I wanted to share some of Bill's videos and make sure my readers know about the work he has been doing. I'll start off with a few brief videos about Iverson ...



The above clip shows a corner of Iverson Village and spotlights a couple of the nearby rocks. (Click here for more posts about Iverson Village.) I don't know which movie this clip is from, but it includes some good stuff. The distinctive rock at the beginning of the clip, which appears right next to the wooden walkway in front of a building, is an interesting feature that is also seen during periods when the town didn't exist, often in the middle of a pond as the area flooded during the rainy season. I call it Pond Rock, but it is also commonly called Stacked Rocks. Sadly, Pond Rock was destroyed to make way for the Indian Hills Mobile Home Village — and presumably they cleared up that flooding problem before they moved the trailers in.

Also in the clip, starting around the 39-second mark, is Center Rock, which can be seen in the background, sticking out from under a big tree. I have an earlier blog post here that includes some background on Center Rock. Center Rock can still be seen today in the mobile home park. The tree is still there too, but it has been trimmed back considerably.



Here's a clip that compiles still shots of Iverson Village, aka the Western street, when it was flooded. I think most or all of these shots come from the episode of "The Roy Rogers Show" called "Ghost Town Gold," which first aired on May 25, 1952. It's one of only a couple of instances I know of where the town appeared in a production when it was flooded. The town was in hundreds of movies and TV episodes, even though it only existed for a relatively short time — from 1945 until about 1957.



This next clip features the Saddlehorn area on the Lower Iverson — and the video begs for ample use of the pause button. If you're quick you can catch the Sphinx in the background in the first three seconds. Right after Sphinx, still in the first three seconds, a stacked rock, presumably manmade, makes a brief appearance. Saddlehorn Rock surfaces at the 6-second mark, followed by a mysterious saddle-shaped rock at 10 seconds. (It's not the same rock as the Saddle, although that rock is located nearby.) The Saddlehorn Relay Station makes an appearance near the end, about 19 seconds in.

The relay station is long gone — none of the buildings from Iverson's filming era survived. As for the rocks seen in this video, the Sphinx and Saddlehorn Rock can still be seen today on a visit to the former Iverson Ranch. The Sphinx is in Garden of the Gods, which has been preserved as a park, and Saddlehorn Rock is just off a walkway through the condominium complex. The mysterious saddle-shaped rock, however, didn't survive, nor did the stacked rock.



Finally, here's a video of the opening sequence from the movie "Callaway Went Thataway" (1951), which features a romp through various parts of Iverson Ranch. The clip, which depicts a movie within the movie, flashes past too many famous movie rocks to try to name them, but it offers a good overview of the ranch. The sequence includes shots of Iverson horizontally flipped as well as properly oriented, and it blends Upper Iverson with Lower Iverson.

You can go directly to Bill's YouTube channel by clicking here. I plan to post more videos from Bill in future entries.

The 1952 aerial photo

Iverson researcher Jerry England came up with this 1952 aerial photo of the Lower Iverson Movie Ranch, which has proved to be an invaluable resource. It's not as clear as we would like, but it's the only "map" of its kind that has surfaced from the filming era depicting the Lower Iverson.

Among other things it shows the location of Iverson's Western town, sometimes called El Paso Street or Iverson Village, toward the top right corner, just below the 118 freeway (approximated by the thick black horizontal line) and just west of Topanga Canyon Boulevard (approximated by the thin black vertical line). On that site today is the Indian Hills Mobile Home Village. A number of researchers have had a hand in identifying landmarks on the aerial shot, with special thanks going not only to Jerry England but also to John Emmons and Bill Sasser. Click on the photo to enlarge it.

A similar shot exists of the Upper Iverson, but it is much less clear than this one. I'll post it at some point, but so far I'm stalling because it's just frustrating to try to find anything on it.