Here's a cool batch of Iverson Movie Ranch videos — and now, we've redefined "batch" to mean ... batch!

Many of these will be familiar to regular readers of this blog ...


















You can go to this link for a lot more of these types of videos.

A treasure trove of Iverson Movie Ranch and Brandeis Movie Ranch video clips

Iverson Movie Ranch researcher and Western movie expert Jerry England has been loading up his YouTube channel with great clips of old movies that showcase Iverson. It's worth keeping an eye on his channel, and if you're as into it as I am, you'll want to subscribe. Here's a sample of the work Jerry has been doing.

The clip below comes from the 1942 Republic serial "Perils of Nyoka," which is in my pantheon of the all-time greatest Iverson productions. See for yourself ...


The "Perils of Nyoka" sequence was shot on the old Upper Iverson and features the swinging bridge, whose location was pinpointed just a few years ago. The bridge was set up above the creek near Turtle Rock — one of the most prominent landmarks on the Upper Iverson's widely filmed South Rim. Turtle Rock can be seen a number of times in the clip, including around the 12-second mark. The rock was a short distance to the south of the bridge and can still be readily spotted today — if you're lucky enough to gain access to what is now a pretty exclusive gated residential area.


Moving to the Lower Iverson, this second "Nyoka" clip includes another of the movie ranch's most prominent features — Nyoka Cliff, named after this serial. This scene didn't originate the term "cliffhanger," which goes back in the movies at least as far as the silent classic "The Perils of Pauline" in 1914 — and even farther, to the newspaper serials of the 19th century and Thomas Hardy's "A Pair of Blue Eyes." But "Perils of Nyoka," one of the most successful film serials of its day, went a long way toward perpetuating, in a literal sense, the idea of the cliffhanger.

Here's a bit of the 1923 Buster Keaton silent film "Three Ages," where the Iverson Gorge and Garden of the Gods serve as an appropriately rocky background for caveman shenanigans:



Jerry has also been researching the Brandeis Movie Ranch, which was also located in Chatsworth, Calif., immediately to the west of the former Upper Iverson. Because the two movie ranches were adjacent, there's a fair amount of overlap when researching one or the other.

Here are a couple of clips showcasing Brandeis ...


This one is from "Outlaws' Paradise," a low-budget 1939 Western starring Tim McCoy.


Here's another Brandeis clip, from "Roamin' Wild," a 1936 Tom Tyler B-Western from Reliable Pictures Corp. This one features Hickeyville, the Brandeis Western town, which is seen in only a few movies. Brandeis wasn't in operation nearly as long as its neighbor to the east, the Iverson Movie Ranch.

You may also want to check out Jerry's blog, which includes a wealth of material about Iverson.

More Iverson Movie Ranch videos: "Cripple Creek"

Below are a couple more Iverson videos posted by film historian Bill Sasser — both from the 1952 Columbia Western "Cripple Creek." You can see some of Bill's other clips in a recent post found here.


This brief clip offers a look at Hangover Shack on the Lower Iverson. The shack was named after Hangover Rock, which can be seen in the bottom photo in an earlier post, found here. That photo, part of the introductory post for this blog, shows Hangover Rock in 2008, with an African hut featured in the NBC TV series "Heroes." The hut was set up in the same general area where Hangover Shack was previously located — the shack would have been to the left of the hut in the photo, if it were still around. Hangover Shack was one of the longest-surviving buildings at Iverson, seen in productions as late as 1996 — although it was in tumble-down condition in later appearances.


Another short clip from "Cripple Creek," this one shifts to the Upper Iverson and focuses on a water feature that appears to have been created just for this movie — a waterfall trickling down the f-clef section of the "T-Cliff," aka "The Cliff." Waterfalls were set up in the same spot for other productions, but as soon as the production moves on, the waterfall goes away. In the "Cripple Creek" clip, the waterfall tumbles into a small manmade pond directly in front of Wrench Rock. This pond appears to be an expanded version of a more common water feature I call the Reflecting Pool, which is below the Cliff and is set off by a concrete berm. The main part of the Reflecting Pool is still in place on the South Rim — usually just as a concrete berm, although it does become a pool again when it gets enough rain.

Wrench Rock does not appear in the clip, but you can see it here.

The more accepted name for the cliff, albeit admittedly obvious, is ... "The Cliff." My alternate name the "T-Cliff" refers to a distinctive T-shaped marking near the cliff's western end. You can see other posts about it here. The f-clef designation for the area where the waterfall trickles down in the above clip stems from the feature's resemblance to the shape of the f-clef musical notation and the f-shaped sound hole found in some guitars and mandolins.

My guess is the waterfall is a low-end special effect along the lines of someone standing at the top of the cliff emptying buckets, as the filming areas at Iverson generally didn't include running water.

Bill Sasser's YouTube channel can be seen here.

Some cool Iverson Movie Ranch videos

Film historian Bill Sasser has been doing research for years on Western movie locations and has put up some terrific video clips on YouTube. Many of them feature the Iverson Movie Ranch, but Bill's prolific research encompasses a wide range of locations — from the other major filming sites, such as Lone Pine and Corriganville, to some of the less widely known ones, such as Beale's Cut and Walker Ranch.

I wanted to share some of Bill's videos and make sure my readers know about the work he has been doing. I'll start off with a few brief videos about Iverson ...



The above clip shows a corner of Iverson Village and spotlights a couple of the nearby rocks. (Click here for more posts about Iverson Village.) I don't know which movie this clip is from, but it includes some good stuff. The distinctive rock at the beginning of the clip, which appears right next to the wooden walkway in front of a building, is an interesting feature that is also seen during periods when the town didn't exist, often in the middle of a pond as the area flooded during the rainy season. I call it Pond Rock, but it is also commonly called Stacked Rocks. Sadly, Pond Rock was destroyed to make way for the Indian Hills Mobile Home Village — and presumably they cleared up that flooding problem before they moved the trailers in.

Also in the clip, starting around the 39-second mark, is Center Rock, which can be seen in the background, sticking out from under a big tree. I have an earlier blog post here that includes some background on Center Rock. Center Rock can still be seen today in the mobile home park. The tree is still there too, but it has been trimmed back considerably.



Here's a clip that compiles still shots of Iverson Village, aka the Western street, when it was flooded. I think most or all of these shots come from the episode of "The Roy Rogers Show" called "Ghost Town Gold," which first aired on May 25, 1952. It's one of only a couple of instances I know of where the town appeared in a production when it was flooded. The town was in hundreds of movies and TV episodes, even though it only existed for a relatively short time — from 1945 until about 1957.



This next clip features the Saddlehorn area on the Lower Iverson — and the video begs for ample use of the pause button. If you're quick you can catch the Sphinx in the background in the first three seconds. Right after Sphinx, still in the first three seconds, a stacked rock, presumably manmade, makes a brief appearance. Saddlehorn Rock surfaces at the 6-second mark, followed by a mysterious saddle-shaped rock at 10 seconds. (It's not the same rock as the Saddle, although that rock is located nearby.) The Saddlehorn Relay Station makes an appearance near the end, about 19 seconds in.

The relay station is long gone — none of the buildings from Iverson's filming era survived. As for the rocks seen in this video, the Sphinx and Saddlehorn Rock can still be seen today on a visit to the former Iverson Ranch. The Sphinx is in Garden of the Gods, which has been preserved as a park, and Saddlehorn Rock is just off a walkway through the condominium complex. The mysterious saddle-shaped rock, however, didn't survive, nor did the stacked rock.



Finally, here's a video of the opening sequence from the movie "Callaway Went Thataway" (1951), which features a romp through various parts of Iverson Ranch. The clip, which depicts a movie within the movie, flashes past too many famous movie rocks to try to name them, but it offers a good overview of the ranch. The sequence includes shots of Iverson horizontally flipped as well as properly oriented, and it blends Upper Iverson with Lower Iverson.

You can go directly to Bill's YouTube channel by clicking here. I plan to post more videos from Bill in future entries.

Jerry England's Iverson Movie Ranch montage

Part 2 of Dancatman's video adventure to "Indian Beak"

Another Dancatman video adventure

Here's a Roy Rogers video filmed on the Iverson Movie Ranch

This is a video someone posted on YouTube of Roy Rogers singing "It's Home Sweet Home to Me." Sorry, the picture quality isn't very good. But the background for the shot is the Upper Iverson in Chatsworth, Calif.

Dancatman walks the Lower Iverson

The Dancatman theme is sung to the tune of "Shenandoah."