Why Corriganville and the Iverson Movie Ranch will never be the same

When the 118 Freeway opened in the late 1960s connecting the San Fernando Valley and Simi Valley, two casualties were the Iverson Movie Ranch and Corriganville. The freeway bisected both filming locations, not only changing the appearance of both sites but also bringing with it traffic noise that made filming difficult.

Here's a prime example of the sedimentary rock formation, or "strata," that is characteristic of the Santa Susana Mountains between the San Fernando Valley and Simi Valley. This rocky hillside is commonly seen in the backgrounds of productions shot at Corriganville, which occupied the eastern end of Simi Valley. This shot looking north from Corriganville is found in Columbia's 1947 Durango Kid (Charles Starrett) B-Western "Riders of the Lone Star."

Here's what that same formation looks like today, with the lower half of it now buried under a large manmade buttress that was built up in front of it to form the foundation for the freeway as it traverses the hills between the two valleys.

 

"The Lone Ranger" TV series, 1949-1957, 

filmed at Iverson and Corriganville

The freeway came in during a period when the business model that made movie ranches like Iverson and Corriganville profitable was already in decline. The B-movie was dead and the early TV production that replaced it had outgrown the "Lone Ranger" and "Roy Rogers" period that kept both movie ranches humming during the 1950s and early 1960s.

Traffic on the 118

Meanwhile, the development pressure and rising land values that came from a rapidly swelling L.A. population — population growth fueled in large part by the burgeoning Hollywood movie industry that places like Iverson and Corriganville had helped nurture — meant that the sprawling movie ranches could no longer be sustained.

Malibu Canyon Fire, 1970

If that weren't enough, the incredibly destructive Newhall-Malibu fires swept through the area in September 1970 and destroyed most of what was left of the movie sets at both sites. Today, virtually all of the movie ranches that once were a prominent feature of the Southern California landscape have disappeared.

"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.

The great Iverson cinematographers: M.A. Anderson

born 1893, Chicago

died 1958, L.A.

Milford Anderson filmography on IMDb

The career of Milford Anderson, also known as M.A. Anderson, was brief, essentially spanning about nine years. He kept busy while he was at it, and wound up listed as cinematographer on 102 movies — but almost none of those were typical Iverson fare. And so the record of his work at Iverson is limited to a few brilliant productions shot late in his career.

An unusual shot of Diplodocus on the Upper Iverson, filmed by 

Milford Anderson for the 1947 Eddie Dean movie West to Glory.

He got started in 1928, just in time to shoot some silents, and then worked fairly steadily through 1936. He was essentially done by the end of that year, and would miss the heyday of the B-Western — other than one shining moment that still lay ahead of him.

He took a year off in 1937, leading us to think he may have had health problems. He did a few movies in 1938, then disappeared from the radar for the next eight years. Maybe he just found something better to do. 

Whatever the case, Anderson made a brilliant if short-lived comeback after World War II, shooting five movies from 1946 to 1949. It was during this last stretch that he shot all of his known Iverson footage, notably the rock masterpiece Border Feud, a 1947 Lash LaRue feature for PRC. He also filmed one Eddie Dean oater for PRC, West to Glory (1947), and one Durango Kid installment for Columbia, Whirlwind Raiders (1948). All three of those projects had him filming at Iverson.

He died in 1958 in L.A., at 64.