Revisiting the Iverson Movie Ranch locations in "Stagecoach," John Ford's Great American Western

I recently took an in-depth look at director John Ford's landmark 1939 Western "Stagecoach," much of which was filmed on the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, Calif. The movie has been a source of confusion and, I think, some misconceptions, especially regarding the construction of sets. I was able to sort out a number of these details this time by going over the movie carefully.

"Stagecoach" (1939) — John Ford's Great American Western

"Stagecoach" contains three main locations represented by sites at Iverson, and they are essentially stops along the stagecoach journey that is the central plot element in the movie. Here are the Iverson sites in the order in which they appear in the movie and along the stage route:

1. Dry Fork way station

Dry Fork is represented by a single-story adobe building at Sheep Flats, west of Hook Rock. Sheep Flats is the area now occupied by the Indian Hills Mobile Home Village, located on Topanga Canyon Boulevard just south of the 118 Freeway. In the above screen shot, Hook Rock is seen near the center of the photo, above the wall and between the stage and the adobe building. Adjacent to the building are a low adobe wall and a wooden gate, through which the stage arrives. This wall and gate are of a similar design to a different wall and gate seen at the next stop along the journey, Apache Wells.

2. The Apache Wells outpost

Apache Wells is depicted only by a wooden gate and adobe wall, as seen in the above screen shot. The set was situated northwest of Garden of the Gods, and is the site of a famous stage arrival sequence with the iconic Garden of the Gods figures (Indian Head/Tower Rock and Eagle Beak/Sphinx) in the background. One of my misconceptions — at least, I now think it was a misconception — was that an actual building was constructed here for Stagecoach. I realized this time around that there is no such building. There are a few shots of an adobe that appear during this sequence, but these look like a studio construction to me. Here's a glimpse of that adobe behind the stage:

Again, I believe the above shot was taken in a studio. Among the visual clues, the background and lighting look like a studio shot. Another clue is that the set is always cut to and cut away from, rather than shot with the rest of the scenery associated with Apache Wells. Even if it is shot on location, there is nothing to indicate that the location is in fact at Iverson. It's worth pointing out that the appearance of this adobe is similar to the appearance of the adobe seen earlier as the Dry Fork way station (see photo above), which was an actual location set built at Sheep Flats. This similarity echoes the similarities in the gates and walls for the two locations. I'm not sure what it means, but maybe the producers were keeping things similar in appearance so they could interchange them if needed — in much the same way that low-budget cowboy stars always wear the same outfit so the footage can be used again and again.

3. Lee's Ferry

Lee's Ferry has been burned out in an Indian attack by the time it appears in the movie. As with Apache Wells, no actual building was constructed for this location. However, an elaborate set has been created to represent the burned remains of the Ferry station. The location for this set is pretty close to Batman Rock, which appears in the shot below. Batman is the large rock at top left that looks like an Indian head. In fact it looks more like an Indian Head than any of the four rocks at Iverson that have been called "Indian Head" — it looks as if it just came off a buffalo nickel. It got the name Batman because of its appearance in an early Batman serial. The set for Lee's Ferry is north and a little bit west of Batman Rock, placing it in close proximity to the set (gate and wall) for Apache Wells. I would say Apache Wells is southwest of Lee's Ferry, but that's a rough approximation.

Lee's Ferry is introduced with a pan shot I've always liked, following the stage as it arrives and slowly revealing the destruction. Early in this pan we see a triple-stacked rock that is obviously fake:

The triple stack is in the top left corner of the above shot.

After the pan showing the remains of Lee's Ferry, the movie quickly cuts to Kern River (above), which is consistent with the kind of "cutting and pasting" Ford does throughout, notably interspersing Iverson and Monument Valley.

Monument Valley, Utah

A number of other shots of Iverson also appear in the movie, but these are generally minor items in the movie. Among them is a brief shot of Hole in the Wall, a feature of the Upper Gorge, just off Redmesa Drive. In the movie it has "smoke signals" coming from the top of it:

Another Iverson feature seen in "Stagecoach" is Hawk Rock, which appears in a brief scene with three mounted riders, Native Americans, descending below it. The rock is shown from an unusual angle that would make it hard to recognize if one hadn't walked along the sidewalk on Redmesa Drive and looked up at Hawk Rock from a bit south of it, which reveals that exact same angle. I've discussed this previously, in an entry about Hawk Rock that can be found by clicking here.

The Iverson Church wasn't originally a church

Update (April 12, 2014): I've done a more recent, updated version of this post, which you can read by clicking here. The older version below remains pretty much as I originally published it, and contains some information that didn't make it into the newer post. But in my opinion, if you had to pick one or the other as the place to start ... I'd go to the newer post. (Again, click here to go to the newer post.)

Film location researcher Bill Sasser tipped me off about a 1947 movie called The Millerson Case, part of a series of Crime Doctor movies from Larry Darmour Productions starring Warner Baxter, originally distributed to theaters by Columbia. The series is usually set in the big city, and so it rarely ventures into rustic Iverson territory. But in this installment the lead character goes on a hunting trip and finds himself in a small country town called Brook Falls — played by Iverson's Western street, sometimes called El Paso Street or Iverson Village.

Among a number of important finds in this movie is probably the first film appearance of what would become the Iverson Church. Tracking the release dates of movies in which the church appears — and there are only a few of them, all released from 1947 to 1949 — I've become convinced that the church was built specifically for The Millerson Case, which came out in May 1947, a couple of months before its next known film appearance — in the Hopalong Cassidy feature The Marauders — and a few months before the church would make the first of what are probably its most commonly seen appearances these days, in a string of PRC-produced B-Westerns starring Eddie Dean and Lash LaRue.

The most surprising twist in the story of the church is that when it was first built, it wasn't a church. It was a schoolhouse. It was subsequently modified to make it look like a church — with arched tops added to the two front windows and a taller turret, complete with arched window, replacing the bell tower, transforming it into a steeple. Above is a slightly askew shot from one of the late 1947 to early 1949 B-Westerns from PRC or its spinoff, Western Adventure, showing the church as a church. The tall rock to the left of the steeple, also visible in the top photo, is known as Church Rock, obviously because of its proximity to the church.

Location expert Tinsley Yarbrough offers what seems to be the most plausible explanation for the transformation of the schoolhouse into a church: It was probably undertaken by United Artists for The Marauders, where the building again plays a major role, this time as a church. Since I first published this post I had a chance to see The Marauders, and I can confirm that the movie is set almost entirely in and around the church. I agree with Tinsley that in all likelihood the producers of that Hopalong Cassidy movie were the ones who transformed the schoolhouse into a church — and it retained that identity for the remainder of its short life.

My original theory was that PRC had something to do with the construction of the church, but PRC was notoriously low-budget, and now that the Crime Doctor and Hoppy movies have surfaced with their more meaningful use of the building, that theory can be put to rest. I find it interesting too that once PRC begins shooting in the area — and the company was there a lot from 1947-1949, with Eddie and Lash — the church is always there, in the background, but it's never brought to the foreground or incorporated into the story.

Here's another shot of the schoolhouse in The Millerson Case, giving a better look at the original turret or bell tower. The schoolhouse plays a central role in the plot of the movie — as headquarters for treating an outbreak of typhoid fever. The building is featured far more in The Millerson Case and The Marauders than in any other movie I've seen.

Here's one more view of the schoolhouse in The Millerson Case, with a portion of Iverson Village also seen. The building on the right can easily be matched with the second photo, after the schoolhouse down at the end of town became the church down at the end of town. Note that horse-drawn carts and more modern vehicles such as the stylish coupe in the top photo coexist in the small country town depicted in The Millerson Case.

I am searching for information on the great cinematographers of the B-movie era

I want to honor the legacy of the cinematographers and other production people who worked in relative obscurity during the heyday of the B-Western and the Saturday matinee serial. If you have information about DPs, directors, production managers or other behind-the-scenes people involved in making B-movies, serials or early TV shows from the silent era through the 1950s — especially those involved in location work and anyone who may have worked at the Iverson Movie Ranch — I would love to hear from you.

With the exception of the most high-profile figures from this period — movie stars and prominent directors, mainly — I have been able to dig up precious little information on the talented people who shaped our movie history and our culture through low-budget, independent productions. I think it would be tragic to allow their legacies to fade from memory while there are still people around who can tell their stories.

I would especially like to hear from the survivors — spouses, friends, co-workers, children, grandchildren and beyond — of those who played a role in making movies at Iverson, as well as anyone who is around who has memories of Iverson.

I am especially interested in hearing about the cinematographers — the men who aimed their cameras at Iverson's dramatic rock formations, among other things, and thereby recorded the ranch's legacy for posterity. I hope to hear from anyone who might be able to help flesh out their biographical information and gain insights into what made them tick.

Here are some of the cinematographers I would like to find out more about:

Robert Cline

Ernest Miller

John MacBurnie

Reggie Lanning

Fayte Browne

Milford Anderson

William Nobles

William Bradford

George Meehan
Bud Thackery

Jack Greenhalgh

Jack Marta

Mack Stengler

Marcel Le Picard

Benjamin Kline
Gilbert Warrenton

Ira H. Morgan

George Kelley

Rex Wimpy

William Hyer

James S. Brown Jr.

Edward Kull

Ellis W. Carter

Harry Neumann

... and others who may not yet be on the radar

Please contact me by commenting on any of the blog entries or by e-mailing me at iversonfilmranch@aol.com.

Ready for his closeup: A "character actor"lurks in the bushes of the Upper Iverson

Here's a screen shot from the 1948 Rocky Lane movie "Sundown in Santa Fe," from Republic Pictures. Visible in the background is a cluster of fairly obscure rocks found on the Upper Iverson Movie Ranch, the focal point being the one with a large, flat "forehead" seen toward the right side of the shot.

Not nearly as flashy as some of the other landmarks of the Upper Iverson, this little group of relatively unknown rocks nonetheless got its share of screen time in the backgrounds of chase sequences during the heyday of the B-Western. They were (and still are) located below and between some of the larger and more iconic chase rocks found in the Upper Iverson's widely filmed South Rim area, such as Prominent Rock (also known as Medicine Rock) and Eagle Beak Rock. I started calling this cluster the Frankenstein Group a while back, because the large forehead on that one rock seemed to be asking for it.

I stumbled upon "Frankenstein" in real life on a 2009 visit to Iverson. I was intrigued by the look of the rock but did not immediately recognize it from the movies. I just thought of it as an interesting character, and I snapped a few photos. Here's one of them:

It wasn't until sometime later — just the other day, while sifting through photos — that it occurred to me there might be a connection between "Frankenstein" and my South Rim denizen. Sure enough, they turned out to be the same rock.

The rock doesn't look much like Frankenstein in real life — it's uglier than Dr. F's man in green. But then, that's a part of what makes it beautiful. Iverson's "Frankenstein" has also probably been in more movies than the famous movie monster — although admittedly, it could be a close call.

An important find: The Molar has survived

One of the most widely filmed rocks at the former Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, Calif., is the Molar, which turns up in the background of countless chase sequences filmed on the Upper Iverson back in the '30s, '40s and '50s and seen in B-Westerns, serials and early TV shows. As one example — and there are literally hundreds to choose from — here's a shot of Roy Rogers from 1955, showing him riding past the Molar, which appears in the top right corner of the picture. The shot is from an episode of "The Roy Rogers Show" called "The Scavenger."

In recent times the Molar has eluded film historians — until today. Previously thought to have been destroyed to make way for construction of the luxury homes of Indian Falls Estates, which now occupy most of the former Upper Iverson, it turns out the Molar was preserved and has been under our noses all along. It now sits proudly, if that's the right word, in the driveway of one of those homes. Here's the Molar today — literally today, as I went to the site earlier this evening, found the rock for the first time and snapped this photo:

The angles of the two shots are not identical, as usual, but it's possible to see markings on the rock that make its identification unmistakable, such as the curved line in the bottom half of the rock, near the center, and various indentations just to the left of that curved line. Click on the photos to enlarge them for a better look.