A Visit to the Lone Pine Film History Museum

Our trip to the Sierras in late June included a stop at the Lone Pine Film History Museum in Lone Pine, California.

Countless movies have been filmed in Lone Pine, especially Westerns.

Although we stopped in the museum gift shop a couple of years ago, the last visit where we spent extensive time looking at the exhibits was in 2010. My photos of the museum taken on that occasion can be seen here.

On this visit there was a terrific item we'd not seen on display before, Humphrey Bogart's car from HIGH SIERRA (1941). Bogart's "Mad Dog" Earle drive the car down Whitney Portal Road into the mountains at the end of that Warner Bros. classic.

The car is a 1937 Plymouth Coupe. It was wonderful seeing such an important item from a "Lone Pine" film in the museum.

Amidst memorabilia from GUNGA DIN (1939) is something I love which I did share a photo of last time around. For the benefit of new readers, this wooden knife bears the signatures of the GUNGA DIN cast, including Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Victor McLaglen, Joan Fontaine, Robert Coote, and Sam Jaffe.

GUNGA DIN is 75 years old this year!

Here are some of the wonderful posters on display in the museum which celebrate films made in Lone Pine:

It's hard not to love a title like MONEY, WOMEN AND GUNS (1958)!

Additional posters for Lone Pine movies can be seen in my 2010 post.

A corner dedicated to director William Wellman...

...which includes Wellman's script for YELLOW SKY (1948).

There are also displays honoring Audie Murphy...

...and director William Witney:

This outfit belonged to Rex Allen:

A costume belonging to Ruth Terry:

Ruth will turn 94 in October.

My husband and I will be spending considerably more time in Lone Pine later this year, as this week we booked our tickets for the Lone Pine Film Festival October 10th through 12th. This is the festival's silver anniversary, but it will be our first visit!

Among other things, I'll be attending a 7:00 a.m. screening of Tim Holt and Richard Martin in DYNAMITE PASS (1950) and then hop on a bus for a tour of locations from the movie. How cool is that for a Tim Holt fan?! Needless to say, I'm really looking forward to it.

We've booked two additional tours that weekend which will take us to even more Tim Holt locations, along with locations for dozens of other Westerns.

The weekend will also include a screening of GUNGA DIN (1939) with Oscar-winning sound effects and special effects experts Ben Burtt (R2-D2) and Craig Barron speaking, plus appearances by William Wellman Jr., Wyatt McCrea, Peggy Stewart, Cheryl Rogers Barnett, Johnny Crawford, and Bruce Boxleitner.

Previous trip posts: Welcome to Lone Pine, Alabama Hills Movie Locations, and Bridgeport, California Movie Locations.

Update: My coverage of the 2014 Lone Pine Film Festival may be found here.