Commemorating one of the baddest of the Western bad guys — Glenn Strange gets an Iverson Ranch rock dedicated in his honor

Glenn Strange, fixin' to do some ambushing at "Glenn Strange Rock" in "The Lone Ranger"

Something's happening this month that will be of interest to fans of the Iverson Movie Ranch, "The Lone Ranger" and perennial Western bad guy Glenn Strange — Glenn is having a rock dedicated in his name.

Glenn Strange as Sam the Bartender on "Gunsmoke"

You might remember Glenn as Sam Noonan, the gruff but lovable bartender on "Gunsmoke." But before he mellowed out enough to tend bar in Dodge for 12 seasons, most of his characters were harder to love.

Glenn Strange as Frankenstein's Monster

Sometime after Boris Karloff decided he was sick of being typecast as Frankenstein's Monster — and after brief, not entirely successful stints as the Monster by horror icons Lon Chaney Jr. and Bela Lugosi — it was Glenn Strange who stepped up to the plate.

Strange donned the green facepaint and neckbolts for Universal's final three Frankenstein movies of the '40s, making his debut as Frankenstein's Monster in "House of Frankenstein" in 1944.

Karloff stepped up from his old role as the Monster to play the Mad Doctor this time around, and Chaney returned to his familiar role as sad sack Larry Talbot — aka the Wolf Man.

Strange didn't rate a mention of his name on the lobby card or other promo material for "House of Frankenstein," part of a conscious effort by the studio to downplay that the role had been handed off yet again.

Swedish poster for "House of Frankenstein" (1944)

The lack of recognition for Strange's work as the Monster went global, as in this example from Sweden, where, as usual, Strange's name is nowhere to be found — even though his face is prominently depicted.

Poor Elena Verdugo had a lot of monsters to contend with in "House of Frankenstein," but Lon Chaney's Wolf Man was especially persistent in letting his intentions be known.

Verdugo was much more receptive to Chaney when he wasn't in one of his "moods."

Red "X" poster for "House of Frankenstein"

The studio made a point of marketing the sex angle. Here it's Anne Gwynne's character who's depicted in peril, although Gwynne's name is kept out of it — as is Glenn Strange's, yet again.

Anne Gwynne — World War II pinup girl

This is what Anne Gwynne — no relation to "Herman Munster," Fred Gwynne — looked like in the flesh. She was one of the most popular pinups among U.S. servicemen during World War II.

Two monsters share a tender moment in "House of Frankenstein"

Karloff and Strange — the former Frankenstein's Monster and the new one — are featured in a promo still for "House of Frankenstein." Karloff, who reportedly had health problems related to the heavy makeup, appears to be checking on how Strange is feeling under all that greasepaint.

"House of Dracula": Glenn Strange has another go at the Monster

Strange apparently didn't mind the makeup, the anonymity or other inconveniences of playing the Monster, tackling the role two more times — in "House of Dracula" in 1945 and "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" in 1948.

Onslow Stevens and Glenn Strange in "House of Dracula" (1945)

By the time of "House of Dracula," Boris Karloff had seen enough of Universal's monsters and bowed out of the franchise for the time being, opening the door for Onslow Stevens to slide into the role of the Mad Doctor.

"Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" (1948)

It was only a matter of time before Universal brought in Abbott and Costello to take the series in a whole different direction — and once again, Glenn Strange was on board in all his green glory.

"Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein": Bela Lugosi and Glenn Strange

Strange wound up working with all three of the movies' "Big Three" classic horror icons — Karloff, Chaney and Lugosi. Here he has a scene with Bela in "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein."

Glenn Strange in his "Abbott and Costello" monster makeup

The movie may have played the monster thing for laughs, but Glenn was as terrifying as ever.

"The Lone Ranger," episode one: "Enter the Lone Ranger" (premiered Sept. 15, 1949)

Still, the scene that cemented Glenn Strange's place in TV history and the annals of Western bad-guydom took place one year after Glenn wiped off the green goo for the last time, and it took place on the Iverson Movie Ranch.

It was 1949 and TV was just getting up to speed — with "The Lone Ranger" poised to become one of its first big successes — when Strange, as Butch Cavendish, masterminded the ambush of the Texas Rangers that launched the saga of the Lone Ranger — all from a perch behind the rock that will now bear his name.

Glenn Strange Rock in modern times

The rock where Strange made TV history back in 1949 remains in place today on the former Iverson Movie Ranch. The rock is on public land and is easy to get to, so "Lone Ranger" fans can visit the spot whenever they want.

This is what Glenn Strange Rock looks like from a bit farther back — that's it on the right.

Butch Cavendish would have been perched on the south side of the rock during the "Lone Ranger" ambush — on a precarious slope, presumably with some scaffolding in place to make his stay more hospitable.

I suppose there's some poetic justice in the fact that the spot where the venomous Cavendish once did his nasty business is now home to a massive infestation of poison oak.

Glenn Strange Rock keeps some good company — the Phantom, on the left, appears in hundreds of productions, and in the center is the "laundry rock" made famous by Laurel and Hardy as the foundation for the massive pile of Foreign Legion laundry in the 1939 RKO comedy "The Flying Deuces."

Stan Laurel stands atop the famous laundry pile in "The Flying Deuces"

In fact, Glenn Strange Rock apparently had a hand in that famous laundry scene — it's probably the source of the telltale bump noted here. (You can read all about the Laurel and Hardy laundry scene by clicking here.)

The prolific and imposing Glenn Strange may not have received the recognition he deserved during his career, but the dedication of Glenn Strange Rock should begin to make up for that oversight.

A special event celebrating the dedication of the rock takes place Friday, Sept. 22, at the Valley Relics Museum, 21630 Marilla St. in Chatsworth, Calif. Doors open at 6 p.m., with the presentation set for 7 p.m.

Julie Ann Ream, the niece of Glenn Strange, will be on hand to give the inside scoop on her famous uncle, and will present the first episode of "The Lone Ranger." I plan to be there to help out if needed.

Valley Relics Museum founder Tommy Gelinas shows off the old Iverson Movie Ranch sign

The event is a fund raiser for the Valley Relics Museum, which is doing much-needed work to preserve the history of the San Fernando Valley. Some readers may recall that earlier this year I discovered an old sign for the Iverson Movie Ranch at the museum.

I hope to see some of you there next week! For more about Glenn Strange Rock and the "Lone Ranger" ambush, including a map to the site, please click here to see my post from 2015.

Glenn Strange and his "Strange Rock": Sam the Bartender on "Gunsmoke" wasn't always such a nice guy — just ask the Lone Ranger!

"Gunsmoke": Glenn Strange as Sam the Bartender

Fans of "Gunsmoke" know Glenn Strange mainly as Sam Noonan, the mild-mannered, albeit occasionally shotgun-wielding, bartender in Miss Kitty's Long Branch Saloon.

Glenn Strange: B-Western baddie

But before he settled down in 1961 for what would turn out to be 12 years and 238 episodes of steady, law-abiding work keeping Dodge City liquored up, Strange spent three decades in Hollywood piling up a resume as one of the baddest — and busiest — bad guys in the Westerns.

"Last Stagecoach West" (1957): Glenn Strange in the Iverson Gorge

As one of the most prolific actors in B-Westerns and early TV Westerns, Strange was a regular on the Iverson Movie Ranch. Between his career in movies going back to 1930 and his TV work starting with "The Lone Ranger" in 1949, Strange appeared in close to 600 productions.

Glenn Strange as Frankenstein's monster

Strange also played Frankenstein's monster in a series of Universal horror films in the 1940s, taking over the role made famous by Boris Karloff after Karloff reportedly got tired of being the monster all the time.

"The Lone Ranger," Episode 1: Glenn Strange as Butch Cavendish (1949)

One of Strange's signature roles came in the TV series "The Lone Ranger." Starting in the show's first episode, Strange played one of the most hated characters of his career — the brutal killer Butch Cavendish.

The Cavendish Gang gathers in Iverson's Garden of the Gods to plan an ambush

In a way, Strange's character created the Lone Ranger. Early in episode one of the TV show, Cavendish masterminded an ambush of a group of Texas Rangers that left almost all of them dead — all except one, who would recover from his injuries and would go on to become the Lone Ranger.

L.A.'s Bronson Canyon: Members of the Cavendish Gang lie in wait

The ambush scene was edited together from two location shoots in two different parts of L.A. — one in Bronson Canyon, near Griffith Park, and one on the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth. Many of the shots of the bushwhackers were filmed in Bronson Canyon.

Texas Rangers ride into trouble in L.A.'s Bronson Canyon

The "box canyon" configuration of Bronson Canyon — a setup that a layman might call a "dead end" — makes it the ideal spot for an ambush.

Glenn Strange as Cavendish — the Phantom in the background

But shots of Cavendish himself during the ambush were filmed in front of a distinctive rock located on the Iverson Movie Ranch: the Phantom, one of the many sandstone giants found in the Garden of the Gods.

Cavendish, center, is joined by members of his gang at his ambush perch in front of the Phantom. The Phantom is readily identified by the smaller rock protruding over the edge at the top of the larger rock.

This is what the Phantom looks like today, from farther back. Here again we can see the smaller rock, at top center, sticking out over the edge of the larger rock.

The rocks seen in the "Lone Ranger" shot tend to blend into each other, but the shot includes three main rock features, as noted here — the Phantom in the background (Rock A), a rock immediately behind the bushwhackers (Rock B) and the rock in the foreground that provides cover for the bushwhackers (Rock C).

The same site as it appears today (photo by Tony M)

The general location for this shot has been known for several years. I blogged about the sequence back in 2010, soon after identifying the Phantom as the rock in the background. But it was only a couple of months ago that the other rocks in the shot were identified.

Iverson aficionado Tony M pointed out the site to me when he was here in September on a tour of movie locations. Tony also took this photo at that time — and I've taken the liberty of marking it up to show the three main rocks.

Rock C: "Glenn Strange Rock," in foreground

The identification of Rocks B and C is historically significant, given the central role the site played in the "Lone Ranger" story. I couldn't resist calling Rock C "Glenn Strange Rock," or just "Strange Rock," in honor of Glenn Strange. The rock's slightly "strange" shape only makes the name that much more appropriate.

"Desire" (1936): Gary Cooper and Marlene Dietrich

Rocks B and C turn up in a number of other productions as well, although they're generally not seen from the angles used in "The Lone Ranger." Both rocks are visible in the background in this screen shot from the Marlene Dietrich-Gary Cooper movie "Desire."

I mentioned Rock C — referring to it generically at the time as "the pointed rock" — when I wrote a couple of years ago about the Garden of the Gods shoot for "Desire." You can see the original post by clicking here.

Where Glenn Strange was positioned during filming of the "Lone Ranger" ambush

Taking a closer look at the "Lone Ranger" ambush site today, we can see that the almost 45-degree slope on the south side of Glenn Strange Rock, where Cavendish and his henchmen were positioned, would have made this a precarious shoot — even without the dried brush that now occupies much of the space.

Presumably Glenn Strange and the other actors had some kind of scaffolding to stand on during filming.

"The Flying Deuces" (Laurel and Hardy, 1939)

"Rock B" from the ambush sequence has its own claim to fame, having provided the foundation for a mountain of laundry during the famous "laundry scene" in the 1939 Laurel and Hardy movie "The Flying Deuces."

The Phantom and "Rock B" in modern times

Here's "Rock B" without the laundry piled on top of it. I posted a blog item last year providing additional details about this shoot, which you can find by clicking on this link.

Map to Glenn Strange Rock and the "Lone Ranger" ambush site

If you can find your way to Redmesa Road in Chatsworth, Calif., you can probably find Glenn Strange Rock and the site of the "Lone Ranger" ambush. Park on Redmesa, just before the condos, and head for the blue gate on the west side of the road. Behind the gate, take Garden of the Gods Trail; at the top, continue straight ahead.