You can't tell me you don't see these faces ...

"The Cisco Kid" TV series, episode "Ride On," original airdate Nov. 19, 1951

On the surface the above screen shot depicts a routine sequence from a "Cisco Kid" episode with a dark horse at a gallop, almost unnoticed at the left of the screen. The sequence is shot on the old Upper Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, Calif., and includes a familiar feature, Eagle Beak Rock, in the top left corner. But would you just look at those other rocks? Some of them are almost unbelievably weird.

Let's take a closer look ...

This group has a lot going on.

Doesn't this rock look like some kind of ancient king? And what's he doing with a puppy on his head?

Here's the puppy.

Don't overlook this guy — sort of a 
hollow-eyed space something-or-other.

Or this guy — a grumpy Sesame Street 
character wearing a vest.

I'm not sure what to make of this one.

I see either a little girl or a doll here.

This one looks a bit demonic — which
may "explain" the rest of them.

That's kind of a lot in one freeze-frame — and I have a feeling I've missed a few. I honestly think it's just weird rocks, shot in a weird light using a weird color process that made them turn out looking weird. Still, I find this stuff mighty intriguing. That demon in the last shot goes 3D if you look at it long enough. Heck, they all do ... some of them just take a little longer.

Click here for the "tricks of light" thread, which is more of this sort of thing.

Below are some links to the "Cisco Kid" TV series on DVD and Blu-ray:

Behold the Window of the Gods — a fixture of movies going back to the silent era

"The Paleface" (1922)

Here's a screen shot from the Buster Keaton silent short "The Paleface" showing a couple of the lesser-known formations on the Iverson Movie Ranch. These beauties are found just north of Garden of the Gods, in an area I call the North Cluster. The actors sprinkled among the rocks are portraying Native Americans, as you may be able to tell or may have guessed from the title. The large rock at top right and the one behind it are still around, and from a different angle they form a sort of "window" — a crack, really, between two huge boulders (see first color photo, below). The proximity of this formation to Garden of the Gods led to its being called Window of the Gods, at least in my own research. The rocks seen in the foreground — including a partially visible Man in the Moon at top left — no longer exist.

"Rocky Mountain Rangers" (1940)

Another look at the same group, this time from Republic's Three Mesquiteers B-Western "Rocky Mountain Rangers" and from much farther back, showing Elders Peak, above Chatsworth Park, in the background — the highest point seen in this shot. Both of the above shots are essentially looking south. Most but not all of the main rock features seen in the center of the shot remain in place today. As mentioned above, Man in the Moon and the rest of the group in front are gone, having given way to development. The area where the riders appear is occupied by condos now.

This is the Man in the Moon part from the above shot, near the front of the group of rocks at the center of the photo. But I have a much better shot of it elsewhere on the blog. Click here to see that blog entry, which is all about Man in the Moon.

"Bullets for Rustlers" (1940)

Here's the angle that got me thinking about the Window of the Gods group for the first time in a while. It's from Columbia's "Bullets for Rustlers," a Charles Starrett B-Western that also stars Lorna Gray — known for her tour de force performance as the evil Vultura in the 1942 Republic serial "The Perils of Nyoka." The giant clump of rocks at top left, consisting of three big sandstone boulders, is Window of the Gods again, from a much different angle, kind of looking northwest. It's hard to be precise about the directions.

Window of the Gods today

Behold the Window of the Gods, as it survives to this day — "kind of" looking west.

Here's a look at those same three big boulders in modern times, from yet another angle ... along with a glimpse of a gray-haired movie location researcher. The "window," as seen in the shot above this one, would be between the rock at the far right and the one next to it, looking out between them to the right. This view is "kind of" looking south again.

For those of you who might be into this sort of thing, the image up above from "Bullets for Rustlers" is full of mysterious and elusive "rock faces." Try these next couple on for size ... and for the more serious researchers out there, feel free to skip this part. I just figure it can't hurt. Who among us has never once enjoyed seeing faces in the clouds and so forth? This is kind of like that.

This one's as good an example as any. I see a big-brained alien with a number of possible faces at lower left, nearly all of them portraying some degree of malicious intent ... but your mileage may vary.

Part of that alien head intrudes again here, in the top right corner, but focus on the center and the lower left. I don't know, I keep seeing faces here, including one pretty good cyclops, but they tend to shift around.

It's one of those movies where the rocks have faces — oh, do they ever!

"The Trusted Outlaw" (1937)

The shots in this blog entry are all from the Bob Steele B-Western "The Trusted Outlaw," filmed at the Iverson Ranch in Chatsworth, Calif. Your mileage may vary, and probably will — and that's probably a good thing. But I'm seeing faces and more faces in these rocks. For example, in the above shot I can make out at least four or five characters, starting with what looks kind of like a claymation clown with multiple faces, on the right side of the shot.

This thing.

And plenty of other "characters." Just look around.

This is a nice view looking southwest across Sheep Flats, with Split Rock on the left (in shadow), Hook Rock on the right and Church Rock in the distance (the small dark, almost horizontal rock visible above the treeline, almost directly above the horse). But what's going on ...

... here?

Here's another screen shot where I think a lot of people would be able to find interesting faces if they wanted to, even though the shot's a little dark. Below are some of my favorite "rock characters" from this shot ...

This one may have a little James Dean in it.

A teenager leaning on a wall? I'm resisting the temptation to say that this unusual movie rock looks like Bob Dylan.

Here's something along the lines of Max Headroom.

There's plenty more where these came from. "The Trusted Outlaw" is a strange movie, to say the least, and it also happens to be one of the greatest Iverson productions ever filmed. The proliferation of weird faces and illusions and what-not in the rocks reminds me of another really weird and wonderful Iverson movie, "Thunder River Feud," which I've blogged about before a number of times — click here to check that one out.

You may also want to click here to see my earlier posts tagged "tricks of light," which include more material along the lines of faces in the rocks. There you'll find the infamous Stegosaurus Caught in an Awkward Moment, Circus Clown in Agony, Man in the Moon, Girl in the Sky and many more. Even the rare and inexplicable Captain Hornblower and White Fang.


Above are some Amazon links in case you're interested in getting ahold of a copy of "The Trusted Outlaw" on DVD.

Stegosaurus — caught in an awkward moment

"Thunder River Feud" (1942)

One pastime that evolved early in my Iverson exploration was finding weird stuff in the old movies, whether it was really there or not. I noticed a lot of what can best be described as tricks of light — images that weren't necessarily formed out of actual objects but had more to do with the way the camera played with the light and shadows. Sometimes it was just because the footage was so bad to begin with that I had to use my imagination to fill in the details — kind of like what made radio so great, according to people who lived through the days before television.

I found myself giving names to these accidents of light and imagination, because you have to name things to have a way to study them. My goal is simply to describe it as accurately as possible, so, for example, the image above from cinematographer Robert Cline's strange masterpiece "Thunder River Feud" became "Stegosaurus Caught in an Awkward Moment" because that's what I see when I look at it — a dinosaur with an embarrassed expression on its face. I eventually shortened the rock name to simply "Stegosaurus."

Stegosaurus: It really exists

When I unexpectedly found Stegosaurus at Iverson, it was one of those peak moments that make exploring the place so much fun. I always assumed that what I had seen in the movie was more imagination than reality. But then there it was in real life. This discovery added a surprise twist to what I thought at the time was pure flight of fancy: Not only did Stegosaurus in fact exist at Iverson, but to my shock, I was able to find it.

It turned out to be a configuration along the face of a familiar rock in the Above Nyoka area, which formed the left side of the Vultura's Temple or Vultura's Palace feature from the Republic serial "Perils of Nyoka," released the same year as Thunder River Feud, 1942. The rock now has a brick wall built onto it, which separates the condominium community on the west side of the wall from the undeveloped area to the east. In the photo above, you can see the top of Hangdog — which formed the right side of Vultura's Palace in "Perils of Nyoka" — sticking up just above the wall.

If you're having trouble spotting the similarities between the two photos, start with the tip of the dinosaur's nose, which is the rounded shape pointing toward the top left corner in either photo. Below it is the mouth — the look of embarrassment being evident only in the screen shot at the top, not so much in the real-life photo above. A bush is growing out of the rock in the same place in both photos, near the dinosaur's eye, even though the pictures are taken more than 65 years apart — the blink of an eye, in dinosaur time.

Girl in the Sky keeps on turning ...

"Thunder River Feud" (1942)

Turning yet again to the endlessly intriguing topic of tricks of light and imagination, we find reason to once again go on and on about "Thunder River Feud" (1942), the Magna Carta (or whatever) of tricks of light. As usual, the enigmatic figure at the center of it all is the man behind the camera, cinematographer Robert "Did He Do That on Purpose" Cline. 

It probably has more to do with the primitive camera technology and the bad print than with art, but "Thunder River Feud" has more interesting "extras" hovering around the corners of each frame than any other movie I've seen. Take for example the scene above. Supposedly it's just some dude on a horse against a nondescript but perhaps unintentionally surrealistic background. But then when you look in the top right corner, there she is: Girl in the Sky. WTF? Click on the photo to enlarge it — she'll still be there!

If that's not enough, check out the top left corner and you might recognize a close approximation of Eugene the Jeep, from the Popeye cartoons.

Eugene the Jeep

I was unable to determine where this particular "Thunder River Feud" scene was shot, but most of the outdoor action for the movie took place on the Iverson Movie Ranch — where the many odd-shaped rocks have a tendency to fuel these sorts of flights of fancy. Even so, I have a feeling that if you could find this spot today, Girl in the Sky and Eugene the Jeep wouldn't be there.

Here's how to get ahold of the DVD for "Thunder River Feud":

Am I the only one who sees a Circus Clown in Agony here?

"Thunder River Feud" (1942)

This may not work for everyone, but when I look at this shot from the insanely weird Monogram B-Western "Thunder River Feud," I see a figure that, to me, looks like a circus clown in agony. In fact, I've come to call the figure "Circus Clown in Agony." If you see it, you know what I mean, and if you don't, then I suppose we should all just step away.

But before we do, here's another chance to enjoy this weirdness. As indicated in the annotation in the above photo, you have the option to see it or not see it. As everyone has been saying since the digital boom, your mileage may vary, or YMMV.

Above is a detail of Circus Clown, just in case this is that one last chance you needed to see the clown. Can't say I didn't try.

If you like this sort of thing, click on this link for more such madness.

This little boy's blue about Man in the Moon

"The Yellow Rose of Texas" (1944)

Here's an oddity from the Roy Rogers/Dale Evans movie "The Yellow Rose of Texas." There's no mystery about where this shot was taken — the camera is just north of Garden of the Gods on the Lower Iverson, looking south toward Stormtrooper, the round-topped rock near the left side of the screen. But where that near-perfect "Man in the Moon" crescent came from, right in the middle of the shot, who knows? I've been all over that area and haven't seen it.

Here's the same shot as above, with Man in the Moon pointed out to make it easier to see.

Another version of the same "Yellow Rose of Texas" shot, with a few other Iverson Movie Ranch features noted — along with details about which features have survived and which have been destroyed. Sadly, "Man in the Moon" is NOT among the survivors.

Here's a detail shot of Man in the Moon, which I've saved from the days when I didn't know how to annotate photos. It may still be easier for some readers to see it in this format.

If you're interested in seeing more of this sort of thing, click here to check out the "Tricks of Light" thread. For more about Man in the Moon, try this one.

Captain Hornblower and White Fang

This shot from the movie "The Naked Hills" (1956) is a personal favorite, falling squarely under the heading of tricks of light and imagination. It depicts not one but two mysterious rock characters who probably are figments of accidental movie magic and whose appearance here probably bears little resemblance to whatever they might look like in real life. I've never been able to locate them, and it may turn out that the scene wasn't shot at Iverson Ranch. The movie includes some fantastic footage of Iverson, but it also shot at Corriganville, an interesting place in its own right. Regardless, these characters deserve any recognition they can get.

Captain Hornblower

Captain Hornblower is the easier of the two figures to make out, and by far the more colorful — the triangular, light-colored rock at the top center of the photo with the wild mustache that seems to be blowing in the breeze.

White Fang

White Fang is the wolf's-head figure at the left of the photo, directly behind the horse on the left.