Actors who were "born old": Walter Brennan

Some of the best-loved characters of classic film and the early TV era were brought to life by actors who seemed as though they were always old — with Walter Brennan being perhaps the quintessential example.

Walter Brennan as Grandpa Amos 

on "The Real McCoys"

Brennan worked in movies for decades before he became famous, but the idea of a "young Walter Brennan" remains all but unimaginable to most of us. Born in 1894, Brennan was already working in silent movies in his early 30s, and he had a distinguished early career. But he became a household name when he broke through in 1957 — at age 63 —as Grandpa Amos on "The Real McCoys" — which included an appearance by Brennan and his TV family at the Iverson Movie Ranch in the pilot.

The McCoy family's new house in California was portrayed in the series pilot by the Middle Iverson Ranch Set, seen above. Their arrival is discussed in more detail in a previous blog entry that you can find here.

Brennan in "The Westerner" (1940)

Brennan already had three Oscars by the time he launched his TV career, having won three times for supporting roles (the only actor to do so) — for "Come and Get It" (1936), "Kentucky" (1938) and "The Westerner" (1940). He wasn't exactly "OLD old" in his film roles of that era ... but he was already "playing old." He just had that kind of look.

With Audie Murphy in "Drums Across the River" (1954)

He worked his way into his share of movies shot at the Iverson Movie Ranch in the course of his career — among them, "Drums Across the River" (1954) and "Support Your Local Sheriff" (1969).

A highlight of Brennan's TV work at Iverson — from a location standpoint — is "Vengeance Canyon," an episode of the Western anthology series "Zane Grey Theatre" that premiered Nov. 30, 1956. In the above screen shot from the episode, that's the well-known movie rock Sphinx behind the actors.

Another shot of Brennan from the "Vengeance Canyon" episode of "Zane Grey Theatre," this time a portion of the Hole in the Wall section of Iverson can be seen in the background.

This is what those same rocks — Iverson's Hole in the Wall, seen in the background in the Walter Brennan shot above — look like today. You may be able to spot the similarities in the outline of the rock at the top and its neighbors.

Brennan was all over the Lower Iverson for that 1956 "Zane Grey" episode. Here's a scene that takes place below Lash LaRue's Arch, seen at the left of the shot.

Another scene from the "Zane Grey Theatre" episode "Vengeance Canyon," this one is shot in the Iverson Gorge.

Walter Brennan is the high-profile tip of the iceberg when it comes to those "born old" actors. Most of the others have much less familiar names — but in some cases they have mighty familiar faces. Below are a few of the most beloved fogeys, geezers, codgers and coots — male and female — who worked at Iverson in the days of B-Westerns and early TV ...

Cyril Delevanti ... I posted about him here

Irene Tedrow

Clem Bevans ... click here for more about him

Here are a few examples of Walter Brennan's work, available from Amazon ...

Tilted Cube survives ... but Walnut, not so much

Here's a movie rock I call Tilted Cube, shown in the 1952 Durango Kid movie "Smoky Canyon," which starred movie cowboy Charles Starrett near the end of his run as the Durango Kid and in B-Westerns in general. Tilted Cube wasn't one of the most widely filmed features on the ranch, but it turned up from time to time.

I ran across it on a recent visit to the former movie ranch, still alive and well, if those terms can be applied to a rock. These days it's a part of the Indian Hills Mobile Home Village, tucked in behind a doublewide. It took a while to track it down, partly because it's well out of the way and also because it doesn't look quite as "cube-like" as it did in the movies. Today you would have to climb on top of a mobile home for the full cube effect, but you still can match it up in these two shots: It has what might be called a "competition stripe" running across it in both photos.

Tilted Cube had a neighbor, Walnut, which I've blogged about before — click here to see that entry. The above shot, which includes the rest of that same frame seen above from "Smoky Canyon," shows the proximity of Tilted Cube to Walnut, partially visible as the large, dark shape on the right.

Here's a better look at Walnut, from the 1943 Republic serial "Secret Service in Darkest Africa," starring Rod Cameron, Joan Marsh and Duncan Renaldo. Cinematography was by Iverson great William Bradford, and the serial was directed by the prolific B-movie director Spencer Gordon Bennet. Walnut was a mighty rock — you can get a sense of the scale of the rock by the size of the car next to it. Even so, it didn't survive the construction of the mobile home park back in the mid-1960s. One of the most lamented of the now departed "classic rocks" in that area of the old Iverson Ranch, Walnut remains only as a memory — and in these images from old movies.

"Daybreak" in Chatsworth: They're still making movies at the Iverson Ranch

Planter in front of the rec room at the Indian Hills Mobile Home Park

The Iverson Movie Ranch hasn't existed for a few decades now — at least not as a working movie ranch. But the land is still there, all 500 acres of it. And most of the trademark rocks remain, even if in many cases they're hidden behind condos and mobile homes — or used as decorative elements in planters, as in the case of End Rock, said to be the large, flat rock in the photo above.

"Secret Service in Darkest Africa" (1943)

Back in Hollywood's Golden Age, End Rock was a more natural landmark, and appeared in countless movies, serials and early TV shows, proudly marking the entry point for a widely filmed chase road. That's End Rock directly behind the horse in the above shot from the Republic serial "Secret Service in Darkest Africa." At least a version of End Rock is still being showcased, in a way — even if it is in the planter outside the community room of the Indian Hills Mobile Home Village.

A shot from the 2012 production "Daybreak" shows the same planter seen at the top 
of this blog entry — including a small slice of what passes for End Rock these days. 

It may come as a surprise that they're still shooting at Iverson, and in fact they're still shooting at Indian Hills. Most of the action nowadays is for TV shows, with the popular comedy series "The Big Bang Theory" and the police procedural "CSI" among those reportedly shooting in the mobile home park in recent years. Lately some of the production is shifting to Web series, a newer format that has also discovered the appeal of the former Iverson Ranch. Whether the crews even realize the place was once a thriving movie facility, who knows? But Hollywood continues to come out to Chatsworth to make movie magic.

"Daybreak" (2012)

The Web series "Daybreak" filmed at Indian Hills in early 2012 and began "airing" on an ATT website last May. To be sure, these modern shoots bear little resemblance to the productions of Iverson's glory days. These days the property is used for what it became when it was no longer a working film location, and in the case of "Daybreak" that means a mobile home park. Other productions in recent years have made use of the estates that now occupy the former Upper Iverson, and on occasion someone will still even shoot the rocks.

The chase is on — a motorcycle chase through the mobile home park, covering the same turf that once featured horse chases on a regular basis. The basic idea is still the same, but the cowboys and Indians have given way to tech nerds and mysterious government agents.

One of the two Ryans who star in "Daybreak" — Ryan Eggold or Ryan McPartlin. (I can't tell them apart.) I got a kick out of seeing the "Indian Hills" sign at the entrance to the mobile home park — if nothing else, it proves where the scene was shot.

The "Daybreak" crew also aimed their cameras across Topanga Canyon Boulevard for a few seconds of footage, catching two of the busy street's main features: Stoney Point, partially visible at the right, and the ubiquitous traffic. This shot was taken from just outside the mobile home park.

Here's a better look at Stoney Point from "Daybreak" — it's one of Chatsworth's most distinctive landmarks and shows up in the background in a lot of old movies, but it's rarely filmed from this close.

Sarah Roemer

Besides the Ryans, the main cast of "Daybreak" consists of Sarah Roemer, Eugene Byrd and Shannon Lucio. One of the show's creators is Tim Kring, who was behind NBC's "Heroes" — which also shot a few scenes at Iverson, back in 2008. Kring is currently an executive producer on Fox's Kiefer Sutherland series "Touch."

"Made it, Ma — top of the world" ... or "You dirty, double-crossing rat"? Cagney Rock and the one that got away

Promotional still for "The Oklahoma Kid" (1939)

The above promo shot for the James Cagney movie "The Oklahoma Kid," featuring Cagney in a rare Western role, comes courtesy of movie location researcher Jerry England. The rock directly behind Cagney's head can still be found at the former Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, Calif. Unfortunately, the overhanging rock hovering above Cagney no longer exists — it was destroyed around the late 1980s to early 1990s when the Cal West Townhomes development was built.

This markup version of the promo still should make it clear which two rocks we're talking about. The overhanging rock has earned the nickname "Overhang Rock," appropriately enough, while I've taken to calling the other one "Cagney Rock."

When I recently found that same rock — the one behind Cagney's head — at Iverson it seemed like kind of a big deal so I honored the occasion by naming it Cagney Rock, at least in my own mind. The above shot shows Cagney Rock in its current setting — from as close as it's possible to get to the same angle seen in the promo shot. These days it's part of the landscaping for the condos. It's no longer possible to duplicate the exact angle of the Cagney promo still.

To be honest, it's not a particularly impressive rock in person — this is probably the best shot I could get of it. You might say it dressed up for the occasion with a dashing "fern necktie." The unnamed rock behind it — which will show up better in some of the photos below — is bigger and, I suppose, grander. And neither of them is nearly as spectacular as "the one that got away" — Overhang Rock. But these two both deserve credit for surviving — and Cagney Rock earned some recognition with its featured appearance in the promo shot.

"The Desert Horseman" (1946)

The one that got away: This is another view of the overhanging rock that hovers above James Cagney in the "Oklahoma Kid" promo still at the top. The thing has had a number of nicknames, the most common being Overhang Rock. I've also seen it referred to as Oklahoma Kid Rock, and I heard recently that some film location researchers have been calling it "Justice Rock," after an appearance by the rock in the Johnny Mack Brown B-Western "Oklahoma Justice." In the above shot from the 1946 Durango Kid movie "The Desert Horseman," the rock reminds me of a rooster, possibly missing its head. Anyway, the shot gives some idea of the scale of Overhang Rock, which was clearly taller than a horse and rider.

Here you'll see I've marked up a copy of the "Desert Horseman" shot, for no apparent good reason. I did want to make sure readers can positively ID Cagney Rock, and I also will use this opportunity to confess that, early in my Iverson Research — before I learned of Overhang Rock's more proper identities and back when I was still taking a more whimsical approach to rock identities — I gave the rock the unofficial nickname Rooster Boy.

"Escort West" (1959)

A shot from the Victor Mature Western "Escort West" shows a portion of Overhang Rock, in the bottom left corner, along with its neighbors, including Cagney Rock, partially visible at bottom center, just to the right of the small tree near the center of the photo. (That tree, by the way, may be the same one, much bigger now, that's blocking the view of Cagney Rock these days — as seen above in the third photo of this blog entry.) This shot gives some idea of the view these rocks had of the rocky Iverson Gorge. The peaks seen in the background, near top center, are across Santa Susana Pass Road from Iverson looking south, above Chatsworth Park.

This is that same shot from "Escort West" with some of the key features marked.

"Land Beyond the Law" (1937)

Overhang Rock was the object of some wishin' and hopin' on the part of Iverson researchers for years, until the sad truth became known just within the past year or so: Overhang Rock no longer exists. The discovery of the neighboring rocks — Cagney Rock and the larger rock next to it, with no Overhang Rock to be found — had a lot to do with proving Overhang Rock was gone. This screen shot from the Dick Foran Western "Land Beyond the Law" shows Overhang Rock, near the bottom left corner, with the much smaller Cagney Rock partially visible directly above Overhang Rock. The smaller rocks to the right of Overhang Rock are gone now too.

A marked-up version of the same "Land Beyond the Law" shot reveals some of the survivors, along with the casualties of development, in Iverson's Upper Gorge.

"The Cheyenne Kid" (1940)

Here's a view of the same group of rocks from the opposite side — looking up at them from down the hill, looking more or less to the north — as seen in the Monogram B-Western "The Cheyenne Kid." Seen here, right to left, are Overhang Rock (above and to the right of the cowboy's head), Cagney Rock (the smaller rock perched kind of precariously, directly above the cowboy's head) and the unnamed "bigger and grander" rock to the left of Cagney Rock that also survived and can still be found at the site today.

The same shot from "The Cheyenne Kid," with the key players highlighted.

Here's what the survivors of that group look like today from about the same angle. Sorry about the dark shot but it was getting toward dusk and these rocks all now live in the shade of that one tree mentioned above. The rocks seen here are the same ones above and to the left of the cowboy's head in the "Cheyenne Kid" shot above.

One last look at the surviving rocks as they appear today, highlighting the main man — the "Oklahoma Kid" himself, Cagney Rock.

Location verite: You can visit the spot where Ronald Reagan was gunned down

The 1955 RKO Western "Tennessee's Partner," starring Ronald Reagan, John Payne, Rhonda Fleming and Coleen Gray, has one of my favorite Iverson Movie Ranch sequences, shot in Garden of the Gods. It's the climactic sequence of the movie, and it takes place in an area that has been preserved as a park and remains open to the public.

"Tennessee's Partner" (1955): Ronald Reagan at the Miner's Cabin

Reagan plays a character known only as Cowpoke — he's the "Partner" in "Tennessee's Partner." Here's a shot of Cowpoke from early in the movie, at the Miner's Cabin — also known as the Lone Ranger Cabin — which was located on the Upper Iverson. The stone foundation visible at the bottom of the photo is still in place at the site.

Foundation of the Miner's Cabin in recent years

This is what's left of Miner's Cabin today — the stone foundation and front steps. The two largest rocks toward the left of the photo are the same as the two big rocks at the bottom left of the Reagan photo at the cabin, above.

Stop reading here if you don't want to know what happens in the movie, as I have to reveal it to show what happened to Reagan's character and where it all went down. Cowpoke meets his demise toward the end of the movie, setting up the climactic chase and fistfight. He's gunned down in an underhanded way by a sniveling weasel named Turner, played by veteran character actor Anthony Caruso. Cowpoke dies heroically, stepping in front of a bullet from Turner, intended for Cowpoke's friend Tennessee.

The shooting takes place near Grubstake's Claim, which in reality is a shallow cave on the back side of a familiar sandstone giant known as the Phantom. That's the weaselous Turner holding Grubstake's sign as Turner tries to take over the claim. The back side of the Phantom is in the background.

Turner takes cover just inside the entrance to Grubstake's Claim — actually a shallow indentation in the rock and not the full-on mine or cave the filmmakers made it out to be.

The site of Grubstake's Claim in modern times

Here's a shot of Grubstake's Claim as it appears these days. You may be able to match up both the main "mine entrance" at the center of the photo and the small diagonal crack in the rock seen at the left. That smaller crack can also be seen in the screen shot above of Turner holding the sign. The site is a little less accessible today, with some foliage blocking the view.

This is the scene moments before Reagan's character, Cowpoke, takes the fatal bullet. That's Reagan in the light-blue shirt. He and his partner, Tennessee (John Payne, at the right), appear to have captured Turner — but they don't realize that the slippery villain is carrying a concealed handgun.

The sequence is filmed in what I call "location verite," meaning if someone runs off in a certain direction, the next shot really takes place in that direction, not somewhere else that may have been more convenient — or cheaper — to shoot. The characters are in approximately the same position in both of the above two shots — filmed first from the back and then from the front. If you go to the site today you can find all of the rocks in this sequence — although the huge tree in the above shot is not there.

Reagan's character is not aware he's about to die. As he and Tennessee are preoccupied with the sheriff, who came up behind them, Turner, at center, goes for his gun.

In this shot, Reagan has just taken the bullet. Turner's about to make his getaway and Tennessee, at the right, missed the whole thing because he had turned around to face the sheriff. Grubstake's Claim in the background pinpoints the spot.

Reagan's death scene — Cowpoke's last words to his friend Tennessee.

Here's where Cowpoke fell dead, in central Garden of the Gods.

In the movie, Turner makes a run for it ...

The getaway site as it appears today — Getaway Rock on the right

Here's that same spot during a recent visit, including the large boulder on the right, which I call Getaway Rock because of its role in this sequence. I walked the area with screen shots and was able to trace the path of the action and find where every shot was taken — thanks to the movie being shot in location verite.

Tennessee takes off after Turner, catches him, and they launch into an epic fistfight, all of which is captured in a series of lavish shots of rarely filmed rock features on the west side of Garden of the Gods. In the above scrape, Turner starts to get what's coming to him, being flung over a sharp-edged rock by an enraged Tennessee.

The sharp-edged rock today

Here's the same spot in recent times — still easy to get to and easy to find if you follow the action in the movie. Many of the same rocks can be seen in both of the above two shots. The movie shot was taken from a distance with a long lens, which accounts for the rock in the background (behind the dead tree in the movie shot) appearing closer in the movie than in the recent photo. That background rock is one of the highest in Garden of the Gods.

Here's another view of the fight scene today, from a reverse angle. The big rock that dominates this shot — a mighty distinctive critter — appears on the left in the previous shots. The "sharp-edged rock" appears here as the small, triangular one in the foreground, toward the left.

Below is a clip from "Tennessee's Partner" containing the climactic sequence — including most of the rocks mentioned above:



Location verite is a technique that was rarely used in the B-Westerns, where keeping costs to a minimum was the guiding principle. It's refreshing to find it here, and it's an indication the movie probably had a little bigger budget. It's a good technique from the standpoint of realism, and as a bonus it makes it easier to do location research.

Click here for a little more about the "Tennessee's Partner" shoot in a blog post mainly about the Judy Garland movie "The Harvey Girls," which was partially shot in the same area.