What are those mysterious white dots in the backgrounds of old Westerns?

"Overland Stage Raiders" (1938)

I started noticing a while back that some of the Westerns and other old movies filmed on the Upper Iverson Movie Ranch had mysterious white dots in the backgrounds. You may or may not see them in the top left corner of this photo, but I've highlighted them below. The shot comes from the old John Wayne movie "Overland Stage Raiders" from Republic, a Three Mesquiteers B-Western that also starred Ray Corrigan and Max Terhune.

These are the dots I'm talking about. I intentionally started with a blurry shot so you could play along at home. Feel free to make your own guess. I'm not sure ALL of the dots noted here fall into this category, but I'm pretty sure at least some of them do. In this shot, as is often the case, the dots are not particularly clear.

"California Firebrand" (1948): The Line of Trees — no dots ... yet

The white dots are typically seen in the vicinity of the Line of Trees. They're not visible in this shot, because the Line of Trees is blurry. But as you will see below, the dots become visible as the background becomes clearer.

This shot identifies the main components of the picture. The Line of Trees separated the Upper Iverson from the neighboring Brandeis Ranch, part of which was also a filming location during the 1930s and early 1940s. I've blogged before about the Line of Trees, and if you would like to see an earlier post that reveals the answer to the dot mystery (which is also revealed below), you can read that post by clicking here.

"California Firebrand": The background becomes clearer as the scene continues

As the "California Firebrand" sequence progresses, the background begins to come into focus and the dots start to appear. This screen shot is taken just moments after the previous one.

We can begin now to see white dots in the background.

"California Firebrand": More background dots

In this shot, still more background dots are visible against the Line of Trees. You may want to view a larger version of the picture by clicking on it.

Several white dots are highlighted in this version of the "California Firebrand" shot. As you may have figured out by now, the dots are part of a fence dividing the Iverson property from the Brandeis property. More specifically, the dots are the tapered or painted section at the top of the wooden fenceposts holding up the fence.

"Calamity Jane and the Texan" (1950)

In this photo we can start to tell that the white dots are attached to fenceposts. The shot comes from the Columbia Western "Calamity Jane and the Texan," which was originally released as "The Texan Meets Calamity Jane."

"The Hills of Utah" (1951): Gene Autry on the Upper Iverson

The fenceposts really start to take shape as Gene Autry rides the range in "The Hills of Utah."

This photo points out a couple of fenceposts in the background of the Gene Autry shot.

"Calamity Jane and the Texan": The money shot

Here's the money shot — the best view of the fenceposts that I've found. The photo reveals the tapered or painted area at the top of the posts that creates all those white dots in the backgrounds of old Westerns. It's another shot from the "Calamity Jane and the Texan" sequence, and three fenceposts are visible — one at the right of the frame, and one over the shoulder of each of the characters on the stagecoach.

"Riders of the Badlands" (1941)

In another stagecoach sequence, from the Charles Starrett movie "Riders of the Badlands," we get an amazing shot of 14 of those "white dots" that we now know are fencepost tops. For additional details about this shot, the white dots, the fenceposts and the Line of Trees, please see this previous post (also linked above).

"Riders of the Badlands" (1941): Old pro cinematographer Benjamin Kline showcases the Upper Iverson

"Riders of the Badlands," a 1941 Columbia B-Western starring Charles Starrett and Russell Hayden, contains some fine cinematic images of the Iverson Movie Ranch. The movie was shot by Benjamin Kline, who was a regular at Iverson in the B-movie era — both as a cinematographer and as a director. Kline was DP on this one, with Howard Bretherton directing. Here are a few sample shots, all filmed on the Upper Iverson.

Nothing flashy here — just a nicely composed shot of a stagecoach at speed, filmed looking west. The riders have broken off part of the team and are making a getaway. In the background, the flat area on the other side of the trees is the neighboring Brandeis Ranch, which was also a filming location for a few years in the 1930s and 1940s. Visible in the foreground and beyond the stage are a number of the chase roads and insert roads that ran parallel to each other to enable the camera car to track the movement of the horses, wagons and stagecoaches being filmed.

Another stagecoach shot, this one shows a couple of the Upper Iverson's native oak trees along with another corner of Brandeis Ranch in the background. Parallel chase roads can again be seen, along with the line of trees separating Brandeis and Iverson, directly in the center of the shot. The line of white dots visible against the line of trees is made up of the white tips of dark fenceposts supporting a nearly invisible fence between the two properties.

A portion of the line of trees separating Iverson Ranch and Brandeis Ranch included the double row of trees seen above, in the top left corner of the shot. This is a relatively rare view of that double line of trees, revealing a dirt road running between the tree rows. This little stretch of road ran north and south, culminating in a cluster of rocks, visible at the top left. Early in my Iverson research I began calling this formation Rocks Across the Way, as the rocks are usually seen in the distance, across the expanse of the Upper Iverson. These rocks have also been referred to as the Festival Rocks by some film historians, but in my own research the name Rocks Across the Way has stuck. By my designation, the cluster of rocks in the top left corner is Rocks Across the Way-West, and the clump seen at top right is Rocks Across the Way-East. Most of these rocks remain intact today, but now they're surrounded by a gated community of large estates.

Here's a shot that combines an impressive view of about 14 of those fencepost tops — the white dots at the top of the shot, along the left half — along with a peek up the road between the double line of trees, now near the top right corner. These aren't spectacular shots at first glance, but the Iverson features depicted in these scenes generally weren't filmed in a way that made it possible to discern any detail, and these unusual angles are quite revealing. Location researchers live for this stuff.