Lone Pine Film Festival 2019 (1 Viewer)

[Andrew M]

We were in Lone Pine, California over the July 4th Holiday. Lone Pine ( and the surrounding area) has been used in hundreds of movies and television shows dating back to The Round-Up with Roscoe Arbuckle in 1920. The Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry series made extensive used of the nearby Alabama Hills. High Sierra, Bad Day at Black Rock, Gunga Din, How The West Was Won, Tremors, Iron Man, Django Unchained and many more were filmed here. Over several days we hiked the Alabama Hills using a readily available on-line trail guide to numerous movie location; went to the Manzanar War Relocation Camp (just 10 miles outside of Lone Pine) on the 4th; drove up 8000 feet to the Mt. Whitney Trailhead and hiked the Devil's Postpile National Monument at Mammoth Mountain. We became members of the Museum of Western Film History and are planning on attending the 30th Anniversary Film Festival in October:

https://www.museumofwesternfilmhistory.org/special-events/daily-schedule

Are any other members planning on attending?

 

[Wayne_j]

And here I thought this was going to be a Back To The Future marathon with the title based on the 'lone pine mall' at the end of the first movie.

 

[Andrew M]

Couldn't find a DeLorean in the Museum. They do have the 1937 Plymouth driven by Humphrey Bogart in High Sierra and a 1941 Buick 8 Roadmaster used in Gene Autry's Trail to San Antone.

 

[Andrew M]

We started watching movies filmed in Lone Pine locations before our initial trip in July. Now, we're watching more to prepare for the film festival. Here are some posters of what we've been watching previously and currently:

 

[Bert Greene]

Another Lone Pine film to consider would be "The Round-Up" (1920) with Fatty Arbuckle. Cinemuseum put it out on Blu-ray, and it looks quite impressive.

 

[Andrew M]

The Round Up (1920) will be screened at this year's festival with live music accompaniment by Jay C. Munns.

 

[dpippel]

Any excuse to go to the eastern Sierra...

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Very cool!

 

[Andrew M]

More posters from Lone Pine locations. The Gunga Din poster shows the climactic battle in the famed Alabama Hills. The Italian poster for How The West Was Won was painted by Reynold Brown.

 

[Andrew M]

More posters! The Alabama Hills location stood in for the foothills of the Himalayas, the Khyber Pass, and the mountains in Spain.

 

[Andrew M]

More posters! Watched The Bamboo Saucer last night. The Alabama Hills are a stand-in for a remote region in "Red China." The Seven Men from Now poster features a large outcropping in the Alabama Hills.

 

[Todd Erwin]

I've always been a bit confused about the Lone Pine Film Festival, thinking for many years it was a competition rather than celebration of movies filmed in the area.

 

[Andrew M]

The website in my first post links directly to the festival information. This will be our first time attending and we've signed up for the opening reception and various tours, in addition to the screenings and lectures. The stars and directors of the previous festival years have passed away but their sons and daughters will be presenting the works of their parents. We had a great time in July and have booked into the same place we stayed at then. The town of Lone Pine has only one traffic light and the hotel we stayed at in July is walking distance to all the restaurants and the museum and town's high school (both sites will be used for screenings). Last time we drove down from San Francisco. Next month we're flying into Las Vegas and driving across Death Valley to Lone Pine.

 

[Andrew M]

TV shows and movies filmed in Lone Pine. 26 Men: Incident at Yuma and The Time Tunnel: Night of the Long Knives were filmed in the Alabama Hills. Adventures of Captain Marvel used stock footage from Storm Over Bengal which was filmed in Lone Pine. The lobby card from the 1949 re-issue of 3 On The Trail (1936) features a outcropping of rocks in the Alabama Hills.

 

[Andrew M]

All the movies and TV shows are watched on either a 65" OLED LG or on a 110" screen with a BenQ HT1085ST 1080p projector.

 

[Andrew M]

I was only able to find an excerpt of Across The Plains (1928) to watch but even in just 10 minutes the whole plot and subplot were revealed. The same holds true for Terror Trail (1933) with Tom Mix. The 2 lobby cards for Terror Trail show off the Alabama Hills. Big Calibre with Bob Steele is usually categorized as a "weird" western with a mad scientist/chemist as the villain who uses poison gas capsules to kill his victims.

 

[Andrew M]

The Adventures of Champion was produced by Gene Autry's Flying A Productions and ran on CBS in 1966-1956 for 26 episodes. The horse called Champion in the TV series was referred to as TV Champ to distinguish him from Gene Autry's movie steed. Rebel was played by J.R. who also starred in The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin. I watched two episodes filmed in the Alabama Hills; Crossroads Trail with Lee Van Cleef as one of the villains and Andrew and the Deadly Double directed by noted serial director, John English. Across the Plains (1939) and Westward Ho (1935) filmed in the Alabama Hills had the same plot of two brothers separated at the death of their parents by outlaws. One brother is raised by outlaws, the other by good guys. They eventually meet up as adults. Only the good brother survives.

 

[Andrew M]

More from Lone Pine! Between Fighting Men starred the great Ken Maynard. Code of the West has an almost slim Raymond Burr as the villainous saloon keeper who gets his comeuppance in an especially vicious fist fight with James Warren. Crooked River stars two of Hopalong Cassidy's sidekicks in the first of six low budget team-ups from Lippert Pictures. Betty Adams changed her screen name to the better-known Julie Adams.

 

[Andrew M]

Under Western Stars was originally written for Gene Autry. He balked over a salary dispute. Republic replaced him with Roy Rogers, for his first starring role. In 2009 Under Western Stars was selected by the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. The song "Dust' sung by Rogers was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song. Rogers plays a cowboy elected to Congress who tries to secure water rights for his drought-ridden district.

 

[Andrew M]

Recently watched or re-watched movies from Lone Pine include Danger Trails with Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, Down Mexico Way with Gene Autry and King Solomon's Mines with Deborah Kerr and Stewart Granger. The desert scenes for King Solomon's Mines were filmed in the Olancha Sand Dunes.