Imaginary Lands of the Movies: Lindero Canyon (Off the Beaten Path)

"Escort West" (1959) — Victor Mature in Lindero Canyon

Here's a shot of Victor Mature with the Simi Ridge in the background — the bluffs above Lindero Canyon in Southern California's Conejo Valley. The shot comes from the MGM-UA Western "Escort West," released in early 1959 but filmed in 1958 and sometimes cited as a 1958 release.

This is the same location, again from "Escort West," minus Victor Mature. We're looking at a part of Lindero Canyon known as North Ranch, which is technically a part of Westlake Village but is considered by some folk to be Oak Park. The area today is a sprawling patchwork of upscale suburban neighborhoods.

Here's the same rocky bluff of the Simi Ridge, photographed on a recent visit to the site. Even though the photo captures what appears in this shot to be a wooded area, the bluff is now surrounded mostly by houses.

An annotated version of the "Escort West" shot highlights the part of the Simi Ridge captured in the recent shot.

The bluffs and other background features that once defined Lindero Canyon as a filming location now define the back yards of suburban homes.

Promo still for "Firecreek," 1968 (Jerry England collection)

The canyon was home to a number of manmade movie sets during its filming days, especially in the late 1960s. In this promo still for the James Stewart-Henry Fonda movie "Firecreek," the same ridge seen behind the suburban house in the previous photo is seen again, this time with a small Western set below it.

The circled part of the ridge is recognizable in the recent "suburban" shot. You may also be able to make out a cemetery in the background, just to the left of the building. (You can click on the photo to enlarge it.)

Here's the shot of the suburban home again, with the same section of ridge highlighted. All of the photos you're seeing are taken in Lindero Canyon, in the North Ranch area.

"Firecreek" (1968)

A widescreen shot from the movie reveals more of the town set that was in place at the time. The movie's first release date was Jan. 24, 1968, and filming would have taken place in 1967.

The "twin peaks" of the Lindero Canyon area, as seen above on the same recent visit to the area, were featured in the movies too. Among the many productions in which these peaks can be found, they appear in "Escort West" — including in a video clip posted below — and in the TV series "The Big Valley."

"The Big Valley" (1967)

The twin peaks above the canyon turn up in this screen shot from the TV series "The Big Valley." The photo comes from the episode "Wagonload of Dreams," which was shot in 1966 and premiered Jan. 2, 1967.

Below is a video of a key scene in "Escort West" shot in Lindero Canyon, below the Simi Ridge ...


I have to admit I've been looking at these photos and clips of Lindero Canyon pretty intently — maybe TOO intently, because after a while my imagination got the better of me and I began thinking something else might be going on in the background. As embarrassing as it is, I'll share with you my flight of fantasy ...

A close examination of the screen shot reveals plenty of material for mind games. This shot highlights features bearing some resemblance to manmade structures. And as we've seen, the canyon did contain a few movie sets during the filming era — including a small Western town.

Specifically, the red rectangle evokes a relay station, while a Western town can be imagined in the yellow outline. How about a large ranch house in the blue area? These vague apparitions might also be interpreted as foretellings of the suburban sprawl that would be arriving soon in the canyon.

I was able to dig up a slightly clearer shot of essentially the same location, from elsewhere in the movie, and it does help shatter the illusions. This one is in full CinemaScope widescreen. With these widescreen shots in particular, you'll probably want to click on the image to see a bigger version.

This shot convinced me that we can rule out the area in the blue rectangle. This is the same area outlined in blue a few shots back, and in this view it's apparent that the area is too high up the hill to be used for a movie set. Besides, the outlined features look more like regular rocks now.

This is a closeup taken from the same shot. Now it just looks like a bunch of rocks.

Here's a closeup of the "relay station" area identified by the red rectangle in the original shot. Oddly enough, I still see something that looks vaguely like a relay station in the red area. But it bears little resemblance to the original "relay station" noted above. And I'm ready to accept that both imaginary relay stations are just that: imaginary.

As for that possible Western town, another closeup from "Escort West" appears to put that idea to rest as well. As Hugh Downs, who hosted the TV game show "Concentration" throughout the 1960s, might have said at the time: "Not a match — the board goes back."

"The Big Valley" (1966)

Please click here to read a recent post with additional details about filming in Lindero Canyon, including more about "Escort West" along with material about area shoots for "Gunsmoke" and "The Big Valley," That post also details the location of the Barkley family mansion in "The Big Valley."

Off the Beaten Path is a series of posts that are not specifically focused on the usual subject matter of this blog, the Iverson Movie Ranch. Past subjects have included Bell Ranch, Pioneertown, Corriganville and other old filming locations. You can go directly to the Off the Beaten Path posts by looking up the term "Off the Beaten Path" in the long index of labels at the right of the page, or by clicking here.

You can't tell me you don't see these faces ...

"The Cisco Kid" TV series, episode "Ride On," original airdate Nov. 19, 1951

On the surface the above screen shot depicts a routine sequence from a "Cisco Kid" episode with a dark horse at a gallop, almost unnoticed at the left of the screen. The sequence is shot on the old Upper Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, Calif., and includes a familiar feature, Eagle Beak Rock, in the top left corner. But would you just look at those other rocks? Some of them are almost unbelievably weird.

Let's take a closer look ...

This group has a lot going on.

Doesn't this rock look like some kind of ancient king? And what's he doing with a puppy on his head?

Here's the puppy.

Don't overlook this guy — sort of a 
hollow-eyed space something-or-other.

Or this guy — a grumpy Sesame Street 
character wearing a vest.

I'm not sure what to make of this one.

I see either a little girl or a doll here.

This one looks a bit demonic — which
may "explain" the rest of them.

That's kind of a lot in one freeze-frame — and I have a feeling I've missed a few. I honestly think it's just weird rocks, shot in a weird light using a weird color process that made them turn out looking weird. Still, I find this stuff mighty intriguing. That demon in the last shot goes 3D if you look at it long enough. Heck, they all do ... some of them just take a little longer.

Click here for the "tricks of light" thread, which is more of this sort of thing.

Below are some links to the "Cisco Kid" TV series on DVD and Blu-ray:

Behold the Window of the Gods — a fixture of movies going back to the silent era

"The Paleface" (1922)

Here's a screen shot from the Buster Keaton silent short "The Paleface" showing a couple of the lesser-known formations on the Iverson Movie Ranch. These beauties are found just north of Garden of the Gods, in an area I call the North Cluster. The actors sprinkled among the rocks are portraying Native Americans, as you may be able to tell or may have guessed from the title. The large rock at top right and the one behind it are still around, and from a different angle they form a sort of "window" — a crack, really, between two huge boulders (see first color photo, below). The proximity of this formation to Garden of the Gods led to its being called Window of the Gods, at least in my own research. The rocks seen in the foreground — including a partially visible Man in the Moon at top left — no longer exist.

"Rocky Mountain Rangers" (1940)

Another look at the same group, this time from Republic's Three Mesquiteers B-Western "Rocky Mountain Rangers" and from much farther back, showing Elders Peak, above Chatsworth Park, in the background — the highest point seen in this shot. Both of the above shots are essentially looking south. Most but not all of the main rock features seen in the center of the shot remain in place today. As mentioned above, Man in the Moon and the rest of the group in front are gone, having given way to development. The area where the riders appear is occupied by condos now.

This is the Man in the Moon part from the above shot, near the front of the group of rocks at the center of the photo. But I have a much better shot of it elsewhere on the blog. Click here to see that blog entry, which is all about Man in the Moon.

"Bullets for Rustlers" (1940)

Here's the angle that got me thinking about the Window of the Gods group for the first time in a while. It's from Columbia's "Bullets for Rustlers," a Charles Starrett B-Western that also stars Lorna Gray — known for her tour de force performance as the evil Vultura in the 1942 Republic serial "The Perils of Nyoka." The giant clump of rocks at top left, consisting of three big sandstone boulders, is Window of the Gods again, from a much different angle, kind of looking northwest. It's hard to be precise about the directions.

Window of the Gods today

Behold the Window of the Gods, as it survives to this day — "kind of" looking west.

Here's a look at those same three big boulders in modern times, from yet another angle ... along with a glimpse of a gray-haired movie location researcher. The "window," as seen in the shot above this one, would be between the rock at the far right and the one next to it, looking out between them to the right. This view is "kind of" looking south again.

For those of you who might be into this sort of thing, the image up above from "Bullets for Rustlers" is full of mysterious and elusive "rock faces." Try these next couple on for size ... and for the more serious researchers out there, feel free to skip this part. I just figure it can't hurt. Who among us has never once enjoyed seeing faces in the clouds and so forth? This is kind of like that.

This one's as good an example as any. I see a big-brained alien with a number of possible faces at lower left, nearly all of them portraying some degree of malicious intent ... but your mileage may vary.

Part of that alien head intrudes again here, in the top right corner, but focus on the center and the lower left. I don't know, I keep seeing faces here, including one pretty good cyclops, but they tend to shift around.

It's one of those movies where the rocks have faces — oh, do they ever!

"The Trusted Outlaw" (1937)

The shots in this blog entry are all from the Bob Steele B-Western "The Trusted Outlaw," filmed at the Iverson Ranch in Chatsworth, Calif. Your mileage may vary, and probably will — and that's probably a good thing. But I'm seeing faces and more faces in these rocks. For example, in the above shot I can make out at least four or five characters, starting with what looks kind of like a claymation clown with multiple faces, on the right side of the shot.

This thing.

And plenty of other "characters." Just look around.

This is a nice view looking southwest across Sheep Flats, with Split Rock on the left (in shadow), Hook Rock on the right and Church Rock in the distance (the small dark, almost horizontal rock visible above the treeline, almost directly above the horse). But what's going on ...

... here?

Here's another screen shot where I think a lot of people would be able to find interesting faces if they wanted to, even though the shot's a little dark. Below are some of my favorite "rock characters" from this shot ...

This one may have a little James Dean in it.

A teenager leaning on a wall? I'm resisting the temptation to say that this unusual movie rock looks like Bob Dylan.

Here's something along the lines of Max Headroom.

There's plenty more where these came from. "The Trusted Outlaw" is a strange movie, to say the least, and it also happens to be one of the greatest Iverson productions ever filmed. The proliferation of weird faces and illusions and what-not in the rocks reminds me of another really weird and wonderful Iverson movie, "Thunder River Feud," which I've blogged about before a number of times — click here to check that one out.

You may also want to click here to see my earlier posts tagged "tricks of light," which include more material along the lines of faces in the rocks. There you'll find the infamous Stegosaurus Caught in an Awkward Moment, Circus Clown in Agony, Man in the Moon, Girl in the Sky and many more. Even the rare and inexplicable Captain Hornblower and White Fang.


Above are some Amazon links in case you're interested in getting ahold of a copy of "The Trusted Outlaw" on DVD.

Stegosaurus — caught in an awkward moment

"Thunder River Feud" (1942)

One pastime that evolved early in my Iverson exploration was finding weird stuff in the old movies, whether it was really there or not. I noticed a lot of what can best be described as tricks of light — images that weren't necessarily formed out of actual objects but had more to do with the way the camera played with the light and shadows. Sometimes it was just because the footage was so bad to begin with that I had to use my imagination to fill in the details — kind of like what made radio so great, according to people who lived through the days before television.

I found myself giving names to these accidents of light and imagination, because you have to name things to have a way to study them. My goal is simply to describe it as accurately as possible, so, for example, the image above from cinematographer Robert Cline's strange masterpiece "Thunder River Feud" became "Stegosaurus Caught in an Awkward Moment" because that's what I see when I look at it — a dinosaur with an embarrassed expression on its face. I eventually shortened the rock name to simply "Stegosaurus."

Stegosaurus: It really exists

When I unexpectedly found Stegosaurus at Iverson, it was one of those peak moments that make exploring the place so much fun. I always assumed that what I had seen in the movie was more imagination than reality. But then there it was in real life. This discovery added a surprise twist to what I thought at the time was pure flight of fancy: Not only did Stegosaurus in fact exist at Iverson, but to my shock, I was able to find it.

It turned out to be a configuration along the face of a familiar rock in the Above Nyoka area, which formed the left side of the Vultura's Temple or Vultura's Palace feature from the Republic serial "Perils of Nyoka," released the same year as Thunder River Feud, 1942. The rock now has a brick wall built onto it, which separates the condominium community on the west side of the wall from the undeveloped area to the east. In the photo above, you can see the top of Hangdog — which formed the right side of Vultura's Palace in "Perils of Nyoka" — sticking up just above the wall.

If you're having trouble spotting the similarities between the two photos, start with the tip of the dinosaur's nose, which is the rounded shape pointing toward the top left corner in either photo. Below it is the mouth — the look of embarrassment being evident only in the screen shot at the top, not so much in the real-life photo above. A bush is growing out of the rock in the same place in both photos, near the dinosaur's eye, even though the pictures are taken more than 65 years apart — the blink of an eye, in dinosaur time.