Why we love old movie locations — especially the Iverson Movie Ranch

For an introduction to this blog and to the growing interest in historic filming locations such as the Iverson Movie Ranch — the most widely filmed outdoor location in movie and TV history — please read the site's introductory post, found here.
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• I've also begun a YouTube channel for Iverson Movie Ranch clips and other movie location videos, which you can get to by clicking here.
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Tuesday, March 27, 2012

More Iverson Movie Ranch videos: "Cripple Creek"


Below are a couple more Iverson videos posted by film historian Bill Sasser — both from the 1952 Columbia Western "Cripple Creek." You can see some of Bill's other clips in a recent post found here.


This brief clip offers a look at Hangover Shack on the Lower Iverson. The shack was named after Hangover Rock, which can be seen in the bottom photo in an earlier post, found here. That photo, part of the introductory post for this blog, shows Hangover Rock in 2008, with an African hut featured in the NBC TV series "Heroes." The hut was set up in the same general area where Hangover Shack was previously located — the shack would have been to the left of the hut in the photo, if it were still around. Hangover Shack was one of the longest-surviving buildings at Iverson, seen in productions as late as 1996 — although it was in tumble-down condition in later appearances.


Another short clip from "Cripple Creek," this one shifts to the Upper Iverson and focuses on a water feature that appears to have been created just for this movie — a waterfall trickling down the f-clef section of the "T-Cliff," aka "The Cliff." Waterfalls were set up in the same spot for other productions, but as soon as the production moves on, the waterfall goes away. In the "Cripple Creek" clip, the waterfall tumbles into a small manmade pond directly in front of Wrench Rock. This pond appears to be an expanded version of a more common water feature I call the Reflecting Pool, which is below the Cliff and is set off by a concrete berm. The main part of the Reflecting Pool is still in place on the South Rim — usually just as a concrete berm, although it does become a pool again when it gets enough rain.

Wrench Rock does not appear in the clip, but you can see it here.

The more accepted name for the cliff, albeit admittedly obvious, is ... "The Cliff." My alternate name the "T-Cliff" refers to a distinctive T-shaped marking near the cliff's western end. You can see other posts about it here. The f-clef designation for the area where the waterfall trickles down in the above clip stems from the feature's resemblance to the shape of the f-clef musical notation and the f-shaped sound hole found in some guitars and mandolins.

My guess is the waterfall is a low-end special effect along the lines of someone standing at the top of the cliff emptying buckets, as the filming areas at Iverson generally didn't include running water.

Bill Sasser's YouTube channel can be seen here.

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