I believe you've met the Angry Cardinal's stiff upper lip ...

"Khyber Patrol" (1954)

A few posts back I introduced a rock formation I call the Angry Cardinal, which was located on the Iverson Movie Ranch and appeared in countless old movies and TV shows. I left out a few details from that post because I needed to bring readers up to speed on some of the Cardinal's neighboring rocks in Iverson's Upper Gorge — especially Hobbit House.

Hobbit House, as it appears today (mostly buried underground)

Hobbit House and Angry Cardinal were close neighbors in the filming era, and in fact Hobbit House was incorporated into the image of the Angry Cardinal. For some background, you can read my original Angry Cardinal post here, and you can click here to get the basics on Hobbit House.

Hobbit House as it stood tall in its movie days, seen here in "Stagecoach Express" in 1942

You may have already put this together, but one big connection between Hobbit House and Angry Cardinal is that the mushroom-shaped top of Hobbit House — its distinguishing characteristic — formed the top beak of the Angry Cardinal.

Hobbit House in context in the Iverson Gorge, as seen in "Khyber Patrol."

The Cardinal's "angry beak" — Hobbit House — could be seen from all the way across the Iverson Gorge, as in the shot, again, from "Khyber Patrol." Hobbit House gave the Angry Cardinal its "stiff upper lip" — its snarling top beak, a focal point of the rock character's "anger." (Another one being the "angry eyebrow" above the beak, which you may be able to spot in the next photo.)

"The Trusted Outlaw" (1937)

The above shot from the Republic B-Western "The Trusted Outlaw" — one of the best productions for spotting cool Iverson stuff — shows a couple of the key components of the Angry Cardinal: the beak, or "stiff upper lip," provided by Hobbit House, and the angry eyebrow — essentially, the Angry Cardinal's head — at top center.

That same shot, with the key players identified.

"The Lone Gun" (1954)

Like the Cardinal's beak, the angry eyebrow could be seen from across the Gorge, as in the above shot from the George Montgomery Western "The Lone Gun."

Components of Iverson's "Angry Cardinal"

Here's that shot again from "The Lone Gun," highlighting some of the features that make up the Angry Cardinal. The bad news about Angry Cardinal is that most of the rock formation appears to have been destroyed. While the "lips," or beak, remain alive in the form of Hobbit House, other features such as the distinctive "angry eyebrow" no longer survive. In their place is a condo unit.

The view today from the same Overlook Point is far less striking.

Here's the same shot with a couple of labels detailing what happened to Angry Cardinal. I've also spotlighted Lone Ranger Rock here, as it's Iverson's most famous rock and serves as a reference point for many film location fans.

My previous post about the Angry Cardinal can be found by clicking here.

One rock to rule them all? A Hobbit House hides among the condos

Bilbo Baggins at home at Bag End

Bilbo Baggins, the Hobbit from "Lord of the Rings," would be right at home in the Cal West Townhomes community in Chatsworth, Calif. The condo development was built on the site of the former Iverson Movie Ranch — the most heavily filmed outdoor location in the history of the movies — and as luck would have it, there's a Hobbit House, or something that looks like one, hidden among the condos.

"The Trusted Outlaw" (1937)

I talked about my search for Plaza Rock in the previous blog entry, and I teased the fact that, while I was unable to find Plaza Rock amid the condos, I did find something pretty cool. What I found was the larger mushroom-shaped rock that is often seen behind Plaza Rock, as in the above screen shot from the Bob Steele movie "The Trusted Outlaw." For reasons I will explain below, I began referring to the larger rock as "Hobbit House."

Hobbit House as it appears today, amid the Cal West Townhomes

After discovering the mushroom-shaped rock in its current setting — where it serves as a large-scale planter decoration in the condo community — I realized the rock has something in common with the Hobbit dwellings in "Lord of the Rings." Like a Hobbit residence in the Shire, most of the rock is now underground.

"Stagecoach Express" (1942)

Here's a shot from the Don "Red" Barry B-Western "Stagecoach Express" from Republic that gives some idea of how tall and imposing Hobbit House was back in its movie days. The rock is at least twice the height of a stagecoach and much taller than Gorge Cabin.

"The Old Corral" (1936)

As you can see in this shot cropped from "The Old Corral," Hobbit House as it stood in the filming era towered over Plaza Rock, which was itself a substantial formation, seen here looming above a large car.

But to create the present-day community of condos surrounding Hobbit House, developers had to make compromises. One of those compromises was to bury most of Hobbit House, fill in the area in front of it with dirt and plant a sprawling lawn, as can be seen in this shot taken on a recent visit to the site.

Hobbit House then — in the 1942 movie "Stagecoach Express," on the left — and now, on the right.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of two shots — one showing Hobbit House as it appeared in the movies in 1942, on the left, and one taken in recent times revealing the rock's new role as a lawn sculpture, on the right. The comparison makes it clear just how significantly the rock formation's stature was diminished when the bulk of it was buried during grading for the condo project.

Today residents of the condo community have the privilege of driving past Hobbit House on their way to and from their garages, as the former movie rock is situated right next to a main driveway. As excited as I was to find the rock — and to learn that it had survived, more or less — I was saddened to see that it had been somewhat brutally "domesticated" in order to make it compatible with a community of townhomes.

 "The Trusted Outlaw" (1937)

But the fate of Hobbit House is better than what happened to Plaza Rock. Which reminds me, what DID happen to Plaza Rock?

All we know is what we can see ... and what we can see makes it pretty clear: Plaza Rock is no more. This shot and the even wider view a couple of photos up present a fairly complete picture of the area in front of and around Hobbit House. If Plaza Rock were still to be found, it would be somewhere in these two shots. My hunch is that Plaza Rock remains under this lawn, completely buried ... probably with the top part of the rock knocked off.

The other option is they broke it up, maybe blew it up, and trucked it off in pieces to a remote location, as illustrated above. (The photo is just an illustration, and has no connection with Iverson.) It strikes me as a lot of wasted effort when they could have just buried the thing. They knew they were going to fill the area with dirt, and that would have been the easiest way to get rid of the "problem" of Plaza Rock.

1952 aerial photo of the Upper Gorge

An aerial view of a portion of Iverson's Upper Gorge, taken in 1952 — when the rocks were still above ground — shows the proximity of Hobbit House and Plaza Rock, which were practically on top of each other. The aerial also highlights a couple of nearby features: the Angry Cardinal, a large rock formation that was the focus of this recent blog post, and the site of Gorge Cabin, which was already gone by 1952. You can click here to read an earlier blog entry that goes into detail about Gorge Cabin. My post previous to this current one, which focuses mainly on Plaza Rock, also discusses the location of Gorge Cabin, and can be seen by clicking here.

This is what the same area looks like today in an aerial view, noting the positions of Hobbit House and Plaza Rock among the condos.

Until someone comes up with a better idea, I'm going on the theory that Plaza Rock remains buried under the lawn. X marks the spot.