A Western hero rides off into the sunset: Dale Robertson, 1923-2013

I was sorry to hear today that Dale Robertson, a Western hero of both the big screen and the little one, has died. Robertson, whose credits in Westerns are virtually endless, died Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013, at age 89 of complications from lung cancer and pneumonia.

Here's a clip that someone put up on YouTube as a tribute to Robertson. The video I originally linked to, which included some Iverson footage, has since been taken down from YouTube — apologies to any of my readers who tried to watch it and were disappointed to discover that it was gone. This newer one doesn't appear to contain Iverson, but it makes up for it by being a little weird. The location clips here are mainly Vasquez Rocks, but the highlight may be the  "Amazing Grace"/"House of the Rising Sun" mashup in the second half:



A number of the Western productions in Robertson's long career were shot at least in part at the Iverson Movie Ranch, with the ones that come to mind right away being the TV shows "Tales of Wells Fargo" and "Death Valley Days." Robertson's series "Iron Horse" also supposedly shot at Iverson, but I've only found a few episodes so far and the movie ranch has yet to turn up.

One movie I know was shot partially at Iverson that features Robertson is "Fighting Man of the Plains" (1949), a Randolph Scott movie in which Robertson has a small role as the outlaw Jesse James.

The Dale Robertson movie "Sitting Bull" (1954) is often cited as an Iverson production, but I have to refute that claim — I've gone through the movie and didn't find any Iverson. I tend to believe the other citation that turns up for this movie, which is that it's shot around Durango, Mexico.

Similarly, the 1964 Paramount Western "Law of the Lawless," starring Robertson along with Yvonne De Carlo, has been cited as Iverson, but I believe that's another erroneous listing.

Robertson acted from the late 1940s into the 1990s — a career spanning six decades. Even with more than 60 movies under his belt — most of them Westerns — he made his biggest impact on TV, including his early success on "Tales of Wells Fargo." Later in his career he appeared in shows including "Dynasty," "Dallas," "Matt Houston" and "Murder, She Wrote," and he headlined his own series, "J.J. Starbuck," for a short time in the late 1980s.

Where did Superman grow up? Right here in Chatsworth, Calif. ... sort of

Kirk Alyn — the original movie "Superman" — at
the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth

The family of the original movie "Superman" joined us last night for a gathering of the Chatsworth Historical Society at the group's Chatsworth history museum, located at the far west end of Devonshire. The centerpiece of the event was a screening of some clips featuring Kirk Alyn in the 1948 Columbia serial "Superman," which filmed most of its location shots at the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth. The serial also starred Noel Neill as Lois Lane and Tommy Bond — formerly the neighborhood bully "Butch" in the "Our Gang" comedies — as cub reporter Jimmy Olsen.

Kirk Alyn and Jean Dean in Radar Patrol vs. Spy King"

A teaser for the event ran on northridge.patch.com with the headline "Shocking! Superman Grew Up in Chatsworth!" That headline was apparently what caught the attention of Alyn's family and brought them out to the CHS meeting ... a happy ending of sorts — which is just what we've come to expect from Superman. Multiple generations of "Superman's" — well, Alyn's — brood were on hand, including his daughter, grandkids and even a great-granddaughter ... along with spouses. Alyn himself died in Texas in 1999 at age 88 after a distinguished career that included not only the two Columbia "Superman" serials (the second being "Atom Man vs. Superman" in 1950) but also a song-and-dance career in vaudeville and on Broadway along with lead roles in a number of other serials, including Republic's "Radar Patrol vs. Spy King" (1949) and Columbia's "Blackhawk" (1952).

Below is a short YouTube clip from early in the original "Superman" serial, which includes the production's first shots of Iverson. After a brief animated segment, the Iverson material starts at about the 18-second mark, with a scene in which an animated mini-rocket containing the infant Superman falls to Earth on the old Upper Iverson.



Among the Iverson Movie Ranch landmarks appearing in the clip: Rock in the Field, seen in the background in the initial shots of the couple in their old truck (starting around 0:21); Rocky Peak — or Pyramid Peak — at 0:29; the Molar (blink and you'll miss it, with the mini-rocket disappearing behind it at 0:34); and the Upper Iverson's Oak Grove, throughout.

But even with all those impressive landmarks, naturally, it's the infant Superman who steals the show.

I have more to write about the Iverson location work in the "Superman" serials — the second one, "Atom Man vs. Superman," is an even better showcase for the movie ranch. Check back for future posts — including this one with more about the 1948 "Superman." I'll also point you to a previous entry about the 1950s TV show "Adventures of Superman," which shot at least one memorable episode at Iverson. (Click here to see that entry.)

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.

Actors who were "born old": Walter Brennan

Some of the best-loved characters of classic film and the early TV era were brought to life by actors who seemed as though they were always old — with Walter Brennan being perhaps the quintessential example.

Walter Brennan as Grandpa Amos 

on "The Real McCoys"

Brennan worked in movies for decades before he became famous, but the idea of a "young Walter Brennan" remains all but unimaginable to most of us. Born in 1894, Brennan was already working in silent movies in his early 30s, and he had a distinguished early career. But he became a household name when he broke through in 1957 — at age 63 —as Grandpa Amos on "The Real McCoys" — which included an appearance by Brennan and his TV family at the Iverson Movie Ranch in the pilot.

The McCoy family's new house in California was portrayed in the series pilot by the Middle Iverson Ranch Set, seen above. Their arrival is discussed in more detail in a previous blog entry that you can find here.

Brennan in "The Westerner" (1940)

Brennan already had three Oscars by the time he launched his TV career, having won three times for supporting roles (the only actor to do so) — for "Come and Get It" (1936), "Kentucky" (1938) and "The Westerner" (1940). He wasn't exactly "OLD old" in his film roles of that era ... but he was already "playing old." He just had that kind of look.

With Audie Murphy in "Drums Across the River" (1954)

He worked his way into his share of movies shot at the Iverson Movie Ranch in the course of his career — among them, "Drums Across the River" (1954) and "Support Your Local Sheriff" (1969).

A highlight of Brennan's TV work at Iverson — from a location standpoint — is "Vengeance Canyon," an episode of the Western anthology series "Zane Grey Theatre" that premiered Nov. 30, 1956. In the above screen shot from the episode, that's the well-known movie rock Sphinx behind the actors.

Another shot of Brennan from the "Vengeance Canyon" episode of "Zane Grey Theatre," this time a portion of the Hole in the Wall section of Iverson can be seen in the background.

This is what those same rocks — Iverson's Hole in the Wall, seen in the background in the Walter Brennan shot above — look like today. You may be able to spot the similarities in the outline of the rock at the top and its neighbors.

Brennan was all over the Lower Iverson for that 1956 "Zane Grey" episode. Here's a scene that takes place below Lash LaRue's Arch, seen at the left of the shot.

Another scene from the "Zane Grey Theatre" episode "Vengeance Canyon," this one is shot in the Iverson Gorge.

Walter Brennan is the high-profile tip of the iceberg when it comes to those "born old" actors. Most of the others have much less familiar names — but in some cases they have mighty familiar faces. Below are a few of the most beloved fogeys, geezers, codgers and coots — male and female — who worked at Iverson in the days of B-Westerns and early TV ...

Cyril Delevanti ... I posted about him here

Irene Tedrow

Clem Bevans ... click here for more about him

Here are a few examples of Walter Brennan's work, available from Amazon ...

Tilted Cube survives ... but Walnut, not so much

Here's a movie rock I call Tilted Cube, shown in the 1952 Durango Kid movie "Smoky Canyon," which starred movie cowboy Charles Starrett near the end of his run as the Durango Kid and in B-Westerns in general. Tilted Cube wasn't one of the most widely filmed features on the ranch, but it turned up from time to time.

I ran across it on a recent visit to the former movie ranch, still alive and well, if those terms can be applied to a rock. These days it's a part of the Indian Hills Mobile Home Village, tucked in behind a doublewide. It took a while to track it down, partly because it's well out of the way and also because it doesn't look quite as "cube-like" as it did in the movies. Today you would have to climb on top of a mobile home for the full cube effect, but you still can match it up in these two shots: It has what might be called a "competition stripe" running across it in both photos.

Tilted Cube had a neighbor, Walnut, which I've blogged about before — click here to see that entry. The above shot, which includes the rest of that same frame seen above from "Smoky Canyon," shows the proximity of Tilted Cube to Walnut, partially visible as the large, dark shape on the right.

Here's a better look at Walnut, from the 1943 Republic serial "Secret Service in Darkest Africa," starring Rod Cameron, Joan Marsh and Duncan Renaldo. Cinematography was by Iverson great William Bradford, and the serial was directed by the prolific B-movie director Spencer Gordon Bennet. Walnut was a mighty rock — you can get a sense of the scale of the rock by the size of the car next to it. Even so, it didn't survive the construction of the mobile home park back in the mid-1960s. One of the most lamented of the now departed "classic rocks" in that area of the old Iverson Ranch, Walnut remains only as a memory — and in these images from old movies.