IN SEARCH OF RANDOLPH SCOTT’S CAMPFIRE…54 YEAR’S LATER

 

 

DOESN’T THIS JUST MAKE YOU WANT TO STRAP ON THE BOARDS, POINT YOUR FEET DOWN HILL & SKI, SKI, SKI:))  (300mm)

Had myself a great super Saturday morning.  Among the many brochures we picked up the other day was self guided tour showing 10 movie locations on Movie Road in the Alabama Hills.  Kelly isn’t quite the western Cowboy oriented person that I am so she elected to sit the ‘movie tour’ out this morning.  Hopped in the Jeep & away I went.  Scouted out a few roads nearby & discovered oodles & oodles of Boondocking spots scattered throughout the Alabama Hills.  And, it’s all BLM land.  What an absolutely great place this is. So many quiet out of the way sites.  No need to stay in this campground if we pass this way again.

 

THE ALABAMA HILLS ARE CRISSCROSSED WITH COUNTLESS MILES OF JEEP ROADS & NUMEROUS BOONDOCKING SPOTS…HOW CAN RVING GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS EH:))

As a small boy, Hopalong Cassidy was my Cowboy hero & I even had some Hoppy stuff as I recall.  As a young boy in the early 50’s we would sometimes go to the Saturday Matinee in Stratford’s Avon Theater & it was here on the big Technicolor screen & Hi-Fi sound that I first saw Randolph Scott.  He quickly became my new Cowboy hero & never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that one day I would be standing in the exact same spot where my hero once sat next to a desert campfire with the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the background.  Well, today I stood on that very spot:))

 

THIS WAS MY FAVORITE FIND THIS MORNING…MY HAT ON THE GROUND MARKS THE SPOT WHERE YOU CAN SEE RANDOLPH SCOTT SITTING BY THE CAMP FIRE TALKING TO FELLOW ACTOR RICHARD BOONE WHO WOULD LATER GO ON TO PLAY PALADIN IN THE TV SERIES…’HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL’

My goal this morning was to find & photograph some of the movie sites that were in the movie guide book.  Wanted to take the same photo the book showed from the old movies.  I love that kind of Geographical sleuthing.  With my trusty self guided tour book in hand I headed off down ‘Movie Road’ to see if I could find those very locations.  Found the place where western star Audie Murphy had galloped his horse while leading another horse in the movie, Showdown.  A bit further down the road a left turn into the desert led me to the exact spot where the graveside scene took place in the movie Rawhide.  My hat sits atop the round stone where that scene took place.

 

(click to enlarge pictures)

A short drive from the Rawhide location I began looking for the village of Tantrapur which was built for the movie, Gunga Din.  Of course the Hollywood built movie village site is long gone but I could see the location where it had been.  While at that same spot I was also able to find two more movie locations with the first one being a scene from the movie, The Gay Caballero starring Cesar Romero. 

  

MY HAT SITS ATOP A ROCK JUST BEHIND CESAR ROMERO’S FEET

This ‘Cabellero’ spot was not an easy find & easily took a good half hour of walking around because I had a couple rock formations mixed up.  From the same location I took this shot I had only to turn around & walk about 10 feet to do the Randolph Scott & Richard Boone Tall T location photo.  And, from there it was a short walk to line up a second location from the movie Gunga Din.

 

 

JEEP IS SITTING WHERE THE BRIDGE IN THE SCENE STRETCHED ACROSS IN THE MOVIE…PHOTO AT RIGHT SHOWS WHERE THE MOVIE CREW HAD ANCHORED THE BRIDGE TO ROCK ON THE LEFT.

Again, it was only another short walk in the soft desert sand to the next movie location showing a Stagecoach scene from How The West Was Won.

 

And, just a few feet from where that scene was filmed, only coming the other way, was a runaway Buckboard scene with a lady spilling out of it.  This was the last picture I took before heading back to the rig.

 

 

Movie Road is only about a mile & a half from our campground here at Tuttle & if we make it back this way again we will find us a Boondocking spot over there in that movie location area next time.  That very area I first saw as a young boy, gazing starry eyed up at that big Saturday afternoon Matinee movie screen, watching Randolph Scott ride his big brown horse through the desert of rocks, sand & mountains.  WOW, did I ever have myself a great Saturday morning:))

 

 

CAME ACROSS THIS CAVE ENTRANCE FRIDAY….SOMEONE MAY HAVE LIVED IN HERE AT ONE TIME BECAUSE A SMALL STOVEPIPE WAS INSERTED IN A SMALL OPENING ALLOWING SMOKE TO COME OUT ONE OF THOSE HOLES IN THE ROCK ABOVE THE ENTRANCE

In recent years the Alabama Hills movie location has been used in Star Trek V & VII, Tremors, Gladiator, Dinosaur & as recently as Robert Downey Junior’s, ‘Ironman.’

GROANER’S CORNER:((  What do you call a country where everyone has to drive a red car?
A red carnation.
What do you call a country where everyone has to drive a pink car?
A pink car-nation.
What would the country be called if everyone in it lived in their cars?
An in-car-nation.

Hey, I don’t write these things, I just stick em in the blog…..A:))

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