John Payne and Emile Meyer join forces in the Iverson rocks on "Restless Gun"

Emile Meyer

Emile Meyer was one of those actors you probably recognize by face, but almost nobody knows by name. He appeared frequently in Westerns, both on TV and on the big screen, with notable performances in "Shane" (1953) and on the James Garner TV show "Maverick" (1957). And like most of the Western actors of the period, he put in his time on the Iverson Movie Ranch.

"The Restless Gun" (1957): Emile Meyer on the Upper Iverson

Meyer worked the Upper Iverson with John Payne when Meyer made a guest appearance on Payne's TV show "The Restless Gun." Meyer played Sheriff Wade Lawson opposite Payne's idealist cowboy-gunfighter Vint Bonner in the episode "Man and Boy," which premiered Nov. 25, 1957.

John Payne on Iverson's South Rim in "The Restless Gun"

Here's a shot of Payne from the same episode of "The Restless Gun," taken during the lead-up to the climactic shootout at the Miner's Cabin on the South Rim.

The episode features some unusual lighting, at times creating the impression that the rocks are lit by campfire light. This one looks like day for night, given how well-lit the background is.

A unique image seen in the episode is this silhouette of a cactus in full bloom, apparently taken atop Iverson's Cactus Hill. Meyer and Payne are the riders.

Here's a shot of a rider traveling along the top of Cactus Hill against a dramatic Chatsworth sunrise — although I get the impression we're supposed to see it as a sunset. In the distance we can see a little bit of Chatsworth Reservoir from back when it was an actual reservoir. It appears as a tiny lighter-shaded horizontal strip to the left of the horse's snout.

Another interesting shot from the episode is this one filmed against the backdrop of Oat Mountain, with a radar dish visible that was part of the Nike missile defense system that was in place during the Cold War. The missile base slips into the backgrounds of a number of Iverson Movie Ranch productions of the 1950s and early 1960s — to read more about it, please check out this earlier blog post.

The "Restless Gun" episode makes ample use of the Iverson rocks, but they're often shot using lighting and angles that make identification difficult.

The climactic sequence plays out behind the Miner's Cabin, on the Upper Iverson's South Rim. This is a relatively rare view of the back of the cabin, looking north toward Oat Mountain, visible in the background.

Much of Meyer's on-screen time is spent against the same background rocks.

Meyer did break out from that one rocky background just long enough to be shot against a different rocky background. Here Meyer displays his trademark frown — and the rock behind him seems determined to match it.

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.

"Platypus Shack" and "Platypus Farm" — an oddity of the old Upper Iverson

This is a screen shot from the 1949 Paramount Western "El Paso," starring John Payne, Sterling Hayden, Gail Russell and Gabby Hayes, directed by Lewis R. Foster with cinematography by frequent Iverson shooter Ellis W. Carter. It shows a farm set I call "Platypus Farm," after the rock near the left of the shot, Platypus. (I call the rock in the center of the shot "Fish Head.") The farm set was probably built specifically for "El Paso," as the full set has not been spotted anywhere else. It has been suggested that the main house, on the right, may have been a false front or a mobile structure. Either way, by the end of the movie, it's gone.

The main building may have been destroyed in the production, as the house burns to the ground later in the movie. The above shot has the survivors burying two poor souls killed in an attack on the farm, and the charred remains of the house can be seen in the background, behind the rider on the right. It seems unlikely that they would have gone to the lengths of actually destroying a building to get the shot, but who knows? This shot seems to support the theory that the house was just a front and was perhaps designed to ultimately be destroyed on camera. Either way, at least part of the set — the shack, partially visible at the left of both of the above shots — survived and went on to appear in a number of productions, including episodes of the "Lone Ranger" TV show.

Here's "Platypus Shack" again, along with the rock Platypus, in the "Lone Ranger" episode "Barnaby Boggs, Esquire," which premiered Feb. 2, 1950, during the TV show's first season. The shot ran properly oriented in this episode, but in a different episode, the exact same footage was used — but flipped horizontally, as seen below:

This is how the shot ran in the "Man of the House" episode, which aired one week earlier, on Jan. 26, 1950. It may seem like shoddy production to run back-to-back episodes containing such an obvious shortcut — presumably just a way to save money by using the same footage twice. But that sort of thing was common in B-Westerns and carried over into early TV, where the producers were convinced, and probably rightly so, that no one was looking at this stuff very closely. Thankfully, we have DVDs and other digital media now and can really tear it down. (Click here for some additional posts about flipping shots.)

One more "Lone Ranger" shot, back to the "Barnaby Boggs, Esquire" episode, where Platypus Shack ran in its correct orientation. This shot offers a better look at the shack, with the Lone Ranger, played by Clayton Moore, circling around back. The shack stood from about 1949-1952 and appeared in a number of movies, including the Whip Wilson B-Westerns "Gunslingers" and "Silver Raiders" for Monogram (both 1950) and the Rocky Lane B-Western "Marshal of Cedar Rock" for Republic (released in early 1953 but filmed in 1952).

"Gun Belt" (1953) — "fancy" version of Platypus Shack

A fancier version of the shack, located a bit closer to the rock Platypus, can be seen in the 1953 movie "Gun Belt," which is discussed in a blog post here.

Here's another look at Platypus — the rock, minus the shack — in the slightly upscale Columbia B-Western "The Gun That Won the West" (1955).

And here's a real Platypus. Maybe you can see the resemblance in the bill, which gives the rock its name. I'll take the blame for it.

The 1957 George Montgomery Western "Gun Duel in Durango" provided this unusual shot of Fish Head, Platypus' neighbor to the east, with a couple of sentries on it — including one sitting on the rock's fish lips. As a footnote about Platypus and Fish Head, I believe both of these distinctive and heavily filmed rocks have survived, although I've never seen them in person. If they do still exist, they're "living" in someone's back yard on the former Upper Iverson Movie Ranch.