Years before the TV show "Adventures of Superman" premiered, a different Superman flew all over the Iverson Movie Ranch

Kirk Alyn, the screen's first live-action Superman 
(Columbia promo still for the serial "Superman," 1948)

The first live-action version of "Superman" to appear on film was a delightfully weird oddity. With ballet-trained Kirk Alyn in the title role, Columbia's 1948 serial danced across the rocky terrain of the Iverson Movie Ranch in an unashamed celebration of the kind of gee-whiz goofiness that marked a more innocent era of superheroes.

Kirk Alyn as Clark Kent on the Upper Iverson

The serial provided a showcase for the movie ranch's charismatic rock features. In this shot Kirk Alyn, as mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent, rolls up on a bit of unpleasantness on the Upper Iverson's South Rim, with the rock formation Smiling Lion lurking in the top right corner.

"Superman" (Columbia serial, 1948)

By all accounts, Kirk Alyn the actor was a "super" nice guy — to the point where the kind of strong-arm work required of his Superman character could be an odd fit. But Alyn proved he was up to the task when it came time to don the Spandex and pull the old double-headlock, or bash two bad guys' heads together.

Here again, Smiling Lion purrs its approval — although at this time of day it's less clear whether the rock is smiling or frowning. A comparison of this photo with the Clark Kent shot above illustrates how the "mood" of the Iverson rocks could be altered by moving the camera a few feet or waiting for the light to change.

The producers of the 1948 "Superman" conjured up an animated version of the superhero as a budget-friendly solution to the problem of flying. The sometimes awkward result found cartoon Superman sharing the frame with rugged Iverson landmarks such as Bigfoot, the rock feature peering in at the left in the above shot.

Back on the South Rim, Clark Kent runs toward the concrete bridge across Fern Ann Creek, also known as Falls Creek. Notice the large metal valve above his shoulder.

As Kent ducks under the bridge to change into his Superman suit, we get a clear look at both the valve and the concrete base of the bridge. I believe the valve was used to cut off the flow of water through the bridge, turning the bridge into a dam and creating a small reservoir on the other side of the bridge.

A moment later, Superman emerges.

As Superman takes flight, he once again becomes a cartoon.

The serial also provides a view of the top of the bridge, as a car approaches. The "low ground" to the left of the bridge filled in with water when the valve was closed, forming the reservoir. The Midway Oaks can be seen behind the car, and above them the top of Oat Mountain looms in the background.

Here's a wider view of the bridge area, filmed from the top of the cliff along the north edge of Cactus Hill. The white area to the right of the bridge is the rocky bed of Fern Ann Creek. The creek itself is rarely more than a trickle, and has been especially dry during California's current drought.

"Ghost Guns" (1944): Johnny Mack Brown and Evelyn Finley at the reservoir

The reservoir was seen in a handful of productions, including providing the background for a burial sequence in the Monogram B-Western "Ghost Guns," starring Johnny Mack Brown.

"Ghost Guns" — the reservoir on Iverson's South Rim

From the proper angle, the small reservoir could be made to appear quite scenic.

"Gunman" (1952) — The reservoir, with the Cliff in the background

A shot of the reservoir several years later, in the Whip Wilson movie "Gunman," is less aesthetically pleasing, but presents a clear view of the cliff and other South Rim features. The shot is taken with the camera pointed south.

A severely decayed version of the concrete bridge and dam remains at the site today, in a rugged, out-of-the-way spot in the midst of a gated community of large estates.

The same space where Clark Kent put on his Superman outfit can still be found, although gaining access to the location poses considerable challenges.

Near the spot where Superman got into character under the bridge, a bunch of crooks set up a diabolical super-weapon in a rocky nook. Most of the rocks surrounding them are still in place today, part of a large rock cluster known as the Totem Rocks or Easter Island.

This is what that same nook — or is it a cranny? — looks like today. You may want to try to match up the rocks in the above two photos before you peek at the labeled versions below.

Here's the "Superman" shot again, with some of the rocks labeled.

And here are those same labeled rocks in the recent photo. Incidentally, there used to be a horse trail up the hill between rocks C and D.

"Border Feud" (PRC, 1947) — Lash and Fuzzy head up the horse trail

In the Lash LaRue B-Western "Border Feud," filmed just a year before "Superman," Lash and Al "Fuzzy" St. John ride up to Cactus Hill in the same spot where we saw the bad guys setting up their super-blaster.

Here's another example of the animated flying spectacle, with a crotch shot of cartoon Superman soaring over the Iverson Gorge. Stoney Point appears at the center of the frame, partially blocked by Superman. Iverson's stagecoach road and Lower Nyoka Cliff are visible at the bottom of the shot.

Cartoon Superman would typically touch down by disappearing behind some landmark. In this shot the animated character makes a landing behind the Hangover Shack on the Lower Iverson.

Here's another landing by cartoon Superman — back in the Fern Ann Creekbed on the Upper Iverson.

A moment later, up pops Kirk Alyn at the same spot. The odd shadow at bottom right belongs to a car door.

Iverson Ranch Road on the Lower Iverson was another focal point of the action in the 1948 serial, with Superman harassing evil doers as they drove around in postwar land yachts that many car lovers would kill to have now.

The familiar profile of Three Kings and a portion of Tower Rock are among the Garden of the Gods features visible in this shot, looking south as the streamlined cruiser travels west on Iverson Ranch Road.

A seemingly unremarkable shot again depicts a vehicle heading west on Iverson Ranch Road. Shots like this, showing a bird's-eye view of a relatively wide area, tend to be rare in old productions, as they required extra setup. But when they do turn up they can be a big help in figuring out the lay of the land.

The shot captures the intersection of Iverson Ranch Road with the west fork of Iverson's so-called "stagecoach road," along with the northwest corner of Rock Island. This part of the stagecoach road is located approximately where Redmesa Road now runs through.

A good deal of misinformation exists about the stagecoach road. Even though it was always just a movie road, the myth that it was an actual stagecoach route has been widely circulated. The above example comes from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy's LAMountains.com website, in its entry on Garden of the Gods.

Here's the same Garden of the Gods blurb minus my editorial comment, so you can read the whole entry — most of which is true. The Conservancy has done a lot of good work in helping to protect the hills above Chatsworth, and is an important ally in the ongoing fight to preserve the land and its legacy.

This shot from recent years, taken among the condos on the Lower Iverson, features some rocks that are pretty distinctive, but are usually overshadowed by a famous neighbor.

They're the same rocks seen in the Kirk Alyn promo still from 1948 that appears at the top of this post. I've posted that photo again here to make it easy to compare the "then and now" shots.

Here's a wider view of the rocks in recent years, revealing that the rocks in the promotional still are part of the same hunk of sandstone that includes Saddlehorn Rock. The promo still is one of only a handful of shots I've seen that focus on the less-famous rocks behind Saddlehorn without featuring Saddlehorn itself.

Another photo from the same promo shoot for "Superman" — probably a more famous photo than the previous promo still — spotlights the Saddlehorn, and hints that it may have been the main reason for shooting promo stills in that spot. Personally, I prefer the more grim-faced Superman in the previous still.

Other shots have also surfaced from the same photo shoot, including this "outtake" promo still that I've posted before. You can read my 2013 report on Kirk Alyn's "Superman" by clicking here.

The 1948 Columbia serial "Superman" was followed two years later by "Atom Man vs. Superman," again starring Kirk Alyn and his cartoon alter-ego, and again filmed heavily at Iverson.  



The Columbia serials featured Alyn as the movies' first live-action Superman, but he wasn't the movies' first Superman. That title went to the cartoon version from Fleischer Studios, which first appeared in 1941. The above video clip is the first Superman cartoon.



Columbia's two "Superman" serials are combined in a reasonably priced DVD set sold on Amazon, which you can find by clicking on the above link. Both serials are filmed on the Iverson Ranch, and the second one, "Atom Man vs. Superman," which I plan to feature in an upcoming post, is on my list of the all-time great Iverson movies.

Adventures of the Three Stooges on the Iverson Movie Ranch, Part II: "Gold Raiders"

Welcome to the second post in the series "Adventures of the Three Stooges on the Iverson Movie Ranch." The Stooges' 1951 Western comedy feature "Gold Raiders" is one of my favorite Iverson movies. By that I mean it's a favorite from a location standpoint, showcasing the Iverson Movie Ranch in spectacular fashion. I'm not commenting on its quality as a movie, as my main focus when I've watched it has been on studying the backgrounds.

Please click here to see the previous post in this Three Stooges series, focused on the 1959 movie "Have Rocket, Will Travel." Part III, on "The Three Stooges Meet Hercules," can be found by clicking here.

"Gold Raiders" has interesting backgrounds right from the title sequence, with the movie's title appearing against the backdrop of the South Rim of the Upper Iverson. You can see part of Turtle Rock in the top-left corner. However, the shot is flipped horizontally. That is, in the real world the background looks like this:

Even though the title appears backward here, this is the proper orientation of the rocks and other features in the background, including Turtle Rock, now seen at top right. Whatever reasons the producers had for flipping the shot, I believe the top of the rock feature was intentionally cut off because otherwise the rock would be too recognizable, making it hard to get away with showing it horizontally flipped.

Turtle Rock has survived, and this is what it looks like today. You may be able to match up some of the rocks in the above two shots, especially the distinctive oblong rock perched at an angle and the small round rock below it, which appear at the very top of the frame in the "Gold Raiders" title shot. (The oblong rock is only partially visible.) These days Turtle Rock is part of the Indian Falls Estates gated community just above the 118 Freeway at the top of Topanga. But in its heyday the feature appeared in countless movies and TV shows, especially B-Westerns, where it was repeatedly popping up in the backgrounds of chase sequences. More about Turtle Rock can be found by clicking here.

We're still in the opening credits, and things are getting even more interesting. Here the rock formation known as the Three Stooges can be seen at top left. The Three Stooges rock formation got its name independently of any involvement with the comedy team the Three Stooges, and the appearance of the rocks in this movie is pure coincidence — but I find it mildly satisfying that the Three Stooges rocks appear in a Three Stooges movie.

Detail shot of the Three Stooges from the above screen shot

From this angle the feature appears to consist of two main rocks, so why not the Two Stooges? Because that wouldn't be much of a cultural reference, but more to the point, the formation is in fact made up of three large rocks. The third one is hard to make out here because it's directly in front of (and smaller than) the wider rock that makes up the right half of the pair.

"Wild Horse Ambush" (Republic, 1952)

Here we get a better look at why it's THREE Stooges. This shot from the B-Western "Wild Horse Ambush" shows the Three Stooges rock formation from a different angle. That's Platypus filling up most of the left half of the frame, Fish Head to its right and the smaller, unnamed "Third Stooge" at far right.

Platypus and Fish Head have been featured in a number of previous posts, which can be found by clicking on the links in this sentence. I suppose the "Third Stooge" can be thought of as the Shemp/Curly/Joe Besser/Curly Joe DeRita slot in the lineup.

About a minute into "Gold Raiders" we see basically the same shot we saw in the title sequence, minus the opening credits and with cowboy star George O'Brien riding in. O'Brien shares the lead in the movie with the Three Stooges comedy team — and shares this shot with the Three Stooges rock formation, again at top left.

To give you an idea of where things stand today, this image comes from an Internet mapping site's bird's-eye view, and it shows what is apparently the Three Stooges rock formation, still intact, but now integrated into the backyard of an estate within the gated community that makes up most of the former Upper Iverson. Access is all but impossible these days, and this may be the best look the public can get at this group of once famous movie rocks. This view is from the north, while most of the movie views are from the south. In this view, Platypus is on the right with just a tip showing, Fish Head is the most visible rock, at left-center, and the "unnamed Stooge" is at far left.

A Google aerial view offers another look at the layout the Three Stooges rock formation now calls home. Seems like a nice spot, with a tennis court, swimming pool and palm trees. This view has the "normal" orientation, with Platypus on the left, Fish Head in the middle and the unnamed Stooge toward the right.

Detail shot of the Midway Rocks

Another point of interest in the opening credits shot above is the horizontal rock just above the word "Screen." It's the main rock in a small cluster I call the Midway Rocks, located roughly midway between the North and South Rims of the Upper Iverson.

"Shadows on the Sage" (1942)

The 1942 oatburner "Shadows on the Sage," in which Tom Tyler, Bob Steele and Jimmie Dodd play the Three Mesquiteers, offers another view of the Midway Rocks, at the right in the above screen shot, in the distance, with the large horizontal rock still dominating the formation. Also, here again the Three Stooges — the rocks — can be seen, just above the guy in the cowboy hat, partially obscured by foliage. Like the Three Stooges rock formation, whatever's left of the Midway Rocks is now found in the backyard of a residential estate.

"Manhunt of Mystery Island" (1945)

Directly above the Midway Rocks in the "Shadows on the Sage" shot is a small (dark) foothill with a pointed top. The above shot from the 1945 Republic serial "Manhunt of Mystery Island" shows this dark peak again, near top center, along with its "twin," to its right. The twin looks larger from this angle, but in reality these two distinctive peaks are similar in size and appearance. For that reason they've earned a mildly lewd nickname that I won't repeat here — but feel free to use your imagination. This shot is taken from a different angle from the others, but again shows the Three Stooges rock formation at top left — again looking more like Two Stooges. An interesting bonus here is that the shot provides an unusual view of the concrete bridge on the South Rim, visible in the foreground. The bridge had a tendency to blend into the background, and this is possibly the only view I've seen that reveals the unusual V-shape of the concrete wall forming the left (west) side of the bridge.

The bridge remains in place today, although it is highly deteriorated and difficult to find. As one might infer from the above photo of it in recent times, it has fallen into disuse and is buried under a fierce patch of wild bamboo. It's extremely hard to get a good look at these days. The above shot shows a portion of the eastern wall of the bridge.

Back to "Gold Raiders," here's a beautiful shot of Center Rock from the movie, as we move from the Upper Iverson to the Lower Iverson and Sheep Flats. Center Rock is still in place today, but as I've mentioned a few times on this blog, it's stuck in some kind of maintenance area in the Indian Hills Mobile Home Village, located on Topanga Canyon Boulevard at the Simi Valley Freeway (the 118).

This recent shot of Center Rock shows what some of its environment looks like today. Click here to see a post that goes into more detail about the fate of Center Rock, with additional movie shots of it.

This shot from "Gold Raiders" shows a rock that's still in place too at the mobile home park, although its glory days are clearly behind it. These days the rock can be found next to a garbage area by the swimming pool. The rock tends to have a variety of names depending on who you ask, but the one I'm using these days is Phineas, after Phineas Gage. Otherwise, it could be referred to as "The Rock Next to the Garbage Area by the Swimming Pool in the Mobile Home Park." Whatever you call it, this monstrosity showed up in a ton of old movies. I have also heard it referred to as Wacky Clam (I blame myself for letting that one get through) and Eyes Rock.

Phineas Gage, including his doctor's depiction of his injury, from 1868 (at left)

The Three Stooges weren't the only comedy team to make movies at Iverson. The above shot comes from the 1942 Abbott and Costello feature "Ride 'em Cowboy," a contemporary Western musical from Universal. This screen shot offers another look at Phineas. Its "three eyes" are among its most distinguishing features.

I can't come up with a modern shot of Phineas from any of the movie angles, but here's the rock from a much different angle. It's impossible to match up with the movie shots above, so you'll have to take my word for it, but it's the same rock. Phineas pretty much fills up the center of the shot, and the garbage area I talked about, which is not seen here, is behind that tree on the left. If nothing else, this shot illustrates how the area surrounding Phineas has filled up with modern junk like brick walls, concrete steps, metal railings, picnic tables and lounge chairs.

For a moment the action shifts back from the Lower Iverson, and the site of what is now the mobile home park, to the Upper Iverson, now the site of a gated community of sprawling residential estates. In "Gold Raiders" the Three Stooges are running something called Three Aces Variety Emporium, and in this shot their wagon travels past a South Rim rock feature known as the Frankenstein Group.

Another shot of Frankenstein and his group, this one is found in the 1949 movie "Golden Stallion." The name Frankenstein comes from the rock's high "forehead."

Here's a look at Frankenstein as it appears today, from a trip to the Upper Iverson a few years ago. Click here to see an earlier entry about Frankenstein.

Iverson Village is featured prominently in "Gold Raiders." The above overview from the movie looks toward the north (by northeast), with the ridge all the way in the back of the shot formed by Oat Mountain. Immediately behind the town is Smooth Hill, with its rounded peak occupying much of the left half of the photo. To the right of Smooth Hill we can see the tip of Notch Hill, but the notch that gives it its name is not visible from this angle. Notch Hill is more commonly seen in shots of the Upper Iverson, but here it is viewed from the Lower Iverson. Is it just me, or is "Harry Temple Livery," seen in the sign at the right of the shot, a playful reference to Moe's haircut?

You may have already spotted a sign in town for the IOOF lodge — visible in the overview and again in the above shot of the lodge itself. That sign appeared in multiple movies shot at Iverson, but it seems especially appropriate to a Three Stooges movie, as the full name of the lodge is the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Incidentally, some of the buildings in town are just fronts, and in the above shot you can tell by looking through the windows at the top, which expose a portion of the open back of the building.

The reference to a Western town prominently featuring an IOOF lodge is historically accurate, as the Odd Fellows Lodge was the country's largest fraternal organization during the period known as the "Golden Age of Fraternalism," roughly 1860-1910 — a span that includes much of the settling of the American West. It was typical of towns in the West during that period to have a branch of the IOOF lodge right in the center of town. Another movie that features the same IOOF sign in Iverson Village is "The Longhorn," a Bill Elliott B-Western from Monogram, released the same year as "Gold Raiders."

Gold Raiders Rock

Here's an interesting rock that's still in place on the old Upper Iverson. The rock — the one the shooters are hiding behind, at the left of the screen shot — took on the name Gold Raiders Rock because of this appearance in "Gold Raiders." The rock is manmade, in a way, with the smaller boulder at the top having been cemented in place. In earlier productions the same rock can be found without the smaller rock on top, as seen below. "Gold Raiders," in 1951, was one of the first appearances of the rock with its new top in place.

This is what the same rock looked like just one year earlier, in the 1950 movie "Calamity Jane and the Texan" — before the rock had the smaller rock placed on top of it. Gold Raiders Rock — before it became Gold Raiders Rock — is the prominent rock near the bottom-right corner, partially blocking the view of one of the horses. None of these angles are going to match up perfectly, but you may notice that the low rocks all the way in the bottom-right corner are the same ones seen in the photo above this one, filling up the bottom third of the shot.

Another view of Gold Raiders Rock before it was "prosthetically enhanced," this one is also from a 1950 movie, "Frisco Tornado," a Republic B-Western starring Allan "Rocky" Lane. This view shows the eastern side of the rock.

Here's Gold Raiders Rock in modern times. You may be able to see the cement holding the top rock in place — especially if you click on the photo to enlarge it. A number of these cemented rock "toppers" began appearing at Iverson around the same time, circa 1950-1951. I'm always curious why a certain rock was cemented on top of another rock at a certain point in time, but in general, we don't get clear-cut answers to those kinds of questions. I do know that around that same time the movie ranch was transitioning from being mainly focused on films to hosting mainly TV productions, and it may be that the Iverson family decided to "freshen up" some of the landmarks to help give the place a new look and encourage new business. After all, many of these rocks had already appeared in hundreds of productions, and the risk of overexposure was a legitimate concern.

In this view of Gold Raiders Rock in recent times, the low rocks seen in a couple of the shots above can again be seen, filling up the foreground. For more about Gold Raiders Rock, click here to see the rock in a "Bonanza" episode, and here to see it in the TV show "Adventures of Superman."

Here's the link again to Part I of this series of blog entries on the Three Stooges, focused on their 1959 movie "Have Rocket, Will Travel." And here's a link to Part III, on "The Three Stooges Meet Hercules."