The Lone Pine Film Festival: The Building and the Backlot Tour

When the featured guests at the Lone Pine Film Festival aren't at screenings or giving talks, they can often be found in "The Building." The Building is the town community center where the guests are available to interact with festival attendees.

Visitors can purchase books or photos for signature, or simply say hello. I was happy to have Cheryl Rogers Barnett sign her book COWBOY PRINCESS, which I'd purchased a decade ago, and David Rothel signed his wonderful book on Tim Holt for me. It's great news that the Holt book is back in print in a softcover edition!

I really enjoyed the chance to meet Johnny Crawford of THE RIFLEMAN, an absolutely lovely gentleman who -- like the other festival guests -- was so nice and friendly. I'm now on his email list for news of his appearances.

I was glad to have the chance to tell him that he is part of happy childhood memories of watching THE RIFLEMAN with my brother. It was one of my brother's favorite shows. (With favorite series like THE RIFLEMAN, HIGHWAY PATROL, and ADAM-12, small wonder he became a police officer.) I'm sure actors such as Crawford probably hear those kinds of stories with some frequency, but at the same time I think it's important that we let them know, when we can, that they have been a good part of our lives.

Here are a couple shots capturing the general scene in The Building, including Edward Faulkner (brown shirt in the top two photos) and Bruce Boxleitner (at right in the bottom photo) chatting with festival attendees.

In the afternoon my husband and I went on the "Lone Pine Backlot Tour," which was a very interesting three-hour car caravan tour. At each stop we would get out of our cars and our guides would explain the significance of the location and show us large movie stills related to the site.

Hopalong Cassidy's cabin! This building, seen in many Hoppy films, is still lived in today, and this was as close as we could get. Click on any photo to enlarge it for a closer look.

A slightly closer view:

This building is known as the "Tim Holt Cabin," as he shot several movies in and around it.

Both the interior and the exterior of the cabin were used for filming.

The Lone Pine Film Museum would like to purchase the cabin, restore it, and move it to the back of the museum grounds, although it's in such fragile condition, if the project comes to fruition they may have to build a replica cabin instead.

Here our guide holds a still of Tim and Richard Martin (Chito) outside the cabin:

Robert Mitchum also shot one of his mid-'40s RKO "B" Westerns here:

Leaving the Alabama Hills and heading the opposite direction out of Lone Pine, you can start down the road to Death Valley and find this ghost town, Dolomite, at the site of a dolomite mine. (The specks of white in the foreground of the photo are dolomite.) This was "Soda City" in Hitchcock's SABOTEUR (1942).

The mining company which owns the property allowed our tour group access but we had to remain this far back from the buildings:

Continuing a bit further along the road to Death Valley, this gas station in Keeler (population 50) was seen in I DIED A THOUSAND TIMES (1955), a Jack Palance remake of another Lone Pine film, Humphrey Bogart's HIGH SIERRA (1941).

The gas station as it looked in I DIED A THOUSAND TIMES:

This decaying train depot on Railroad Avenue in Keeler was seen in the silent film GREED (1924):

Diaz Lake, seen in the background of various Westerns:

And some local residents wondering what we were doing!

For more on the Lone Pine Film Festival, please visit The 25th Lone Pine Film Festival in Review, which includes all links to all of my festival coverage at the end of the post.

Additional Lone Pine Film Festival Posts will be coming soon!