Devil's Pass, Vultura's Pass and another look at everyone's favorite Wookiee from "Star Wars"

Chewbacca — rising above Devil's Pass (aka Vultura's Pass)

It's high time I update my blog entry from a few years ago on the Iverson rock I call Chewbacca.

Not everyone sees the resemblance between the rock and the beloved "Star Wars" Wookiee (often spelled Wookie), but it popped out at me the first time I saw the rock in person. Your mileage may vary, and I hope I get comments on whether readers see it or not.

"The Lone Ranger" TV show: episode "Devil's Pass" (1950)

The rock is located in a section of the former Lower Iverson I call Devil's Pass. The name comes from the title of an episode of the TV show "The Lone Ranger" that originally aired May 25, 1950. In the above screen shot from the episode "Devil's Pass," the Lone Ranger and Tonto are seen riding west through the pass.

Chewbacca is out of the picture, but would be up high on the right. Directly above Tonto's head is an often filmed rock known as Hangover Rock, which you may want to enlarge the photo (by clicking on it) to get a better look at. (You can find another shot of Hangover Rock at the bottom of this post.)

The same pass is also known as "Vultura's Pass," as it was the location of Vultura's Palace, seen above, in the seminal 1942 Republic serial "The Perils of Nyoka." The pass today remains on private property and is difficult to access other than looking at it over the brick wall that now separates this spot from the nearby condos. Some of the rocks in the above two shots are the same — you may be able to match up the rocks in the above photo that are just above the roof of the palace, near the center-top of the photo, with the same pair of rocks in the "Lone Ranger" shot, near the top-left corner. It's two rocks separated by a curved crack, and if I only had a dime for every time I've heard that expression.

Here's a shot of the evil Vultura, played by Adrian Booth — also known as Lorna Gray — posing for a publicity still for "The Perils of Nyoka" at the Iverson Movie Ranch, courtesy of Western movie expert Jerry England.

Another early shot of Lorna Gray/Adrian Booth, who apparently is still going strong at 95 — it wasn't that long ago, just a few years, that I went to an event in Hollywood to hear the longtime Republic Pictures star reminisce about the studio's Golden Age. Does she have stories!

"Buffalo Bill Rides Again" (1947)

Meanwhile, back at the Pass — Devil's or Vultura's — this is the view from a sniper's outpost up next to Chewbacca, looking west with the Upper Gorge in the background. The riders are entering the west end of the pass, arriving from the north, and will head roughly east. The screen shot comes from the Richard Arlen/Jennifer Holt B-Western "Buffalo Bill Rides Again."

Like most rocks, Chewbacca's appearance changes as it's viewed from different angles and in different light. Sadly, the thing has been hit with a little graffiti, something that has been a bit of a problem on the former Iverson Movie Ranch. It's most evident in the photo at the top of this post.

You might not think this prehistoric-looking thing is the same rock, but it is. Lighting makes a big difference, as illustrated by this shot of Chewie later in the day. Most of the character's "face" is in shade here.

This side of the rock reminds me of something out of the Broadway show "Cats."

There's that brick wall I mentioned, toward the right and down the hill. This is Devil's Pass in recent years, looking more or less southwest. On the other side of the wall are hundreds of condos.

Here's a better look at Hangover Rock, which is also seen in the third photo from the top, above. The precarious-looking feature marks the eastern end of Devil's Pass/Vultura's Pass. The African hut seen in this shot from the summer of 2008 was a set for the NBC TV series "Heroes." Partially visible in the background at the right is a non-movie house that was known as the "Old Folks' House," where Karl and Augusta Iverson, the founders of the Iverson Movie Ranch, lived in their later years. The house burned down just a few months after this photo was taken, in the 2008 Porter Ranch Fire.



NBC's series "Heroes" shot at Iverson for an Africa storyline that was a part of season three.

Chewbacca

Chewbacca strikes me as eerily similar to the "Star Wars" character. A few of the people I've shown the photo to say they don't see it. Let me know if you have an opinion one way or the other. I also see a little bit of Jabba the Hutt in the figure to the left of Chewie, but that's beside the point.

"The Roy Rogers Show": One of the most important documents of filming on the Iverson Movie Ranch

If I had to pick one TV series to get my Iverson fix, I'd probably go with "The Roy Rogers Show." The 100 episodes filmed during the show's run from 1951-1957 are a treasure trove of Iverson Movie Ranch rocks.

Roy was an iconic Western hero, and even today, long after his death in 1998 at age 86, he defines cool. The legacy Roy left behind exhibits a genuine quality that transcends the silliness of 1950s TV and rises above the amateurish production values that typified the TV Westerns of the period — including his own show.

Roy, Dale and Trigger — publicity still

Roy Rogers and Dale Evans lived in Chatsworth around the time their TV show was on the air, so Iverson was their home court. And they made great use of the place.

"The Roy Rogers Show" — "Ambush" (premiered Jan. 15, 1956)

Here's a shot of Roy and Trigger in front of Raccoon Rock on the Lower Iverson in Season 5. The series filmed consistently at Iverson throughout its six-season run on NBC.

Above is a screen shot from the show that includes Batman Rock at the far right, along with a small wooden building that was located near Saddlehorn Relay Station, north of Garden of the Gods. This little building turns up in many productions, and I refer to it in my research as Saddlehorn Shed.

A lot of temporary buildings went up in that area over the years for various productions, and John Ford made ample use of the area for "Stagecoach" in 1939. (Click here for a detailed post about Iverson locations in "Stagecoach.") Saddlehorn Shed was off by itself, more or less east of the widely filmed Saddlehorn Relay Station.

A number of buildings and other features in the area are named after nearby Saddlehorn Rock, above — still found at the site, amid some condos, and still boasting its distinctive saddlehorn shape.

"The Roy Rogers Show": Outlaw Rock

This screen shot from "The Roy Rogers Show" features Outlaw Rock, which includes a small but distinctive marker rock that I used to call the Finch, when I didn't know any better. It's the rock at the top of the shot with what looks like a beak, pointing toward the left of the frame.

The marker rock is circled in this version of the shot. Outlaw Rock is located in the Above Nyoka area of the Lower Iverson, part of the same cluster as Chewbacca, which is around the corner to the right, out of the shot. My guess is that the small pile of rubble in the lower left corner of the shot is debris from Hangover Shack. The shack was almost always in disrepair, but survived in some form long after most of the structures of Iverson's filming era, being used for filming as late as 1996.

This photo is a distant shot of part of Outlaw Rock, including the small, pointed marker rock — the Finch, if you will — from a recent Iverson visit.

Welcome to the obsession: The Iverson Movie Ranch

"Silver Treasure" (Fox Film Corp., 1926)

I discovered it in summer 2008 and have been hooked on it ever since — the rugged landscape in Chatsworth, Calif., that marks the site of the former Iverson Movie Ranch. 

Tower Rock, left, and Sphinx in modern times

With its striking sandstone rock formations, this remote corner of the San Fernando Valley on the outskirts of Los Angeles was an important hub of the movie business from the earliest days of Hollywood well into the 1960s, gaining a reputation as the most widely filmed outdoor location in the world.

"20 Million Miles to Earth" (Columbia, 1957)

An ideal setting for Westerns, the 500-acre Iverson Movie Ranch also found its calling in science-fiction movies, war epics and tales of distant lands such as Africa, India, the South Pacific and the Middle East.
 

The Phantom: Located on public land in the Garden of the Gods

It is the site where Republic Pictures made almost all of its serials and B-Westerns, and where countless outdoor action sequences were filmed by crews from Paramount, Universal, Warner Bros., Columbia, 20th Century-Fox, RKO, Monogram and just about every major production company of Hollywood's Golden Age.
 

"Little Big Horn" (Lloyd Bridges and John Ireland, 1951)

An estimated 3,500 films and TV episodes were filmed on the site, dating back to the 1910s.

"Jaunty Sailor"

While B-Westerns and early TV shows provided much of Iverson's business, the sprawling ranch also took a bow in major features such as John Ford's epic Western "Stagecoach" (1939) and his classic Depression saga "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940). 

"Along Came Jones" (RKO, 1945): Gary Cooper and William Demarest
on Cooper's newly minted Iverson Western street

Gary Cooper was a frequent visitor to the Iverson Ranch and built a Western town on the site for the 1945 RKO Western "Along Came Jones," the only movie Cooper produced himself. 

"The Lives of a Bengal Lancer" (Paramount, 1935): Climactic battle sequence
filmed in the Iverson Gorge

Cooper's "The Lives of a Bengal Lancer" was among the major war movies filmed on the Iverson Ranch, along with John Wayne's "The Fighting Seabees" (1944) and Errol Flynn's "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (1936).

"Chewbacca"

All the cowboy movie heroes worked at Iverson — Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Audie Murphy, Randolph Scott, Tom Mix, William S. Hart and the rest. So did major movie stars from Barbara Stanwyck to James Cagney to Judy Garland to Henry Fonda to Shirley Temple. 

"Three Ages" (Buster Keaton in Bathtub Rock, 1923)

Bob Hope, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy and the Three Stooges were among the comedy stars to film at Iverson. Pioneering stuntman Yakima Canutt perfected many of his trademark stagecoach stunts on Iverson's well-traveled chase roads, while superheroes including Superman and Batman donned their capes at the ranch. 

Opening to "The Lone Ranger": Clayton Moore on Silver
at the Iverson Ranch's famed "Lone Ranger Rock"

Early TV Westerns such as "The Lone Ranger" and "The Cisco Kid" filmed regularly on the ranch, paving the way for the next generation of bigger, better TV productions — "Bonanza," "Gunsmoke," "The Virginian," "The Big Valley" and many others, all of which shot on the Iverson Ranch.

Woolly Mammoth

Iverson's charismatic rock "characters" — Lone Ranger Rock, Batman Rock, Tower Rock and Sphinx, Nyoka Cliff and hundreds of others — coexist today with the condominiums, mobile homes, mansions and apartments that took over the land as the heyday of the B-Western, the cliffhanger serial and early TV faded into history. 

"The Grapes of Wrath" (1940): The Joad family surveys the San Fernando Valley,
including Chatsworth's Stoney Point, from Iverson's Overlook Point

While a number of Iverson's distinctive and widely filmed movie rocks have been bulldozed or blown up to pave the way for progress, most have survived — even if in many cases they now lie forgotten in back yards, hidden behind locked gates or buried under a half-century of natural overgrowth.

Hangover Rock in 2008: African hut in place for the NBC series "Heroes"

Meanwhile, some Iverson landmarks remain at risk of being demolished for future development, opening the door for debate as to whether these silent stars are cultural artifacts that deserve to be protected.

"Chinless Wonder"

On the screen or in person, Iverson's unique giant boulders have so much personality that they seem to be living creatures. The charismatic stone figures that populate this intriguing corner of the world have become almost like family to me.

"Tarzan the Ape Man" (1932): Iverson's lost, lamented rock feature "The Wall"

I'm learning more about the Iverson Movie Ranch all the time, but it is a rich and complicated place, and one reason I love it is I know it holds mysteries I will never solve. 

Material is being added to the blog on a regular basis, as time permits. If you would like to be placed on my mailing list, to be notified about new entries as they're posted, please send me an email at iversonfilmranch@aol.com.

This blog contains a lot of information and photos. If you need help navigating, I suggest using the links along the right side of the page, especially the super-long "LABELS" section that runs much of the length of the page. The LABELS list indexes blog entries by rock name, movie title, TV show title, actors and actresses, directors and other key elements. The blog's word search feature, which you should be able to find in the top left corner on your browser, also works well and might help you find what you're looking for.

Please leave comments, and please feel free to email me for any reason.

Below are links to DVDs of just a few of the many movies filmed on the Iverson Movie Ranch. Please support efforts to research and preserve the history of the Iverson Ranch by clicking on the links to shop for these DVDs on Amazon ...