I had an absolutely wonderful few days attending the
32nd Lone Pine Film Festival.
The festival took place from the 6th through the 9th; we arrived in town a day early as this year my husband was the guide for two horseback tours of movie locations which took place on the 6th and 7th.
We used our extra time in town ahead of the fest to do quite a bit of location hunting on our own, including seeing where many of the scenes in THE NEVADAN (1950), RAWHIDE (1951), RIDE LONESOME (1959), and HELL BENT FOR LEATHER (1960) were filmed, to name just a few of the titles we researched.
Below, the view Tyrone Power and Susan Hayward had sitting on the station steps at the end of RAWHIDE:
This year I "only" saw four films at the festival: DANGEROUS VENTURE (1947), YELLOW SKY (1948), ROUGHSHOD (1949), and BIG JAKE (1971), but I went on four two-hour location tours, which I think might be my record for this festival. The tours were fascinating and educational.
We saw some unique film locations outside the Alabama Hills on the Owens River tour:
While in Lone Pine I also watched three hour-long "B" Westerns in my "down" time as prep for the Owens River tour: THE MAN FROM UTAH (1934), LAWLESS RANGE (1935, and BETWEEN MEN (1935); I also saw the Cisco Kid film THE GAY CABALLERO (1940), which features locations I visited last summer. I anticipate writing about these films and sharing location photos here in the future.
As usual, the festival opened on Thursday night with a BBQ buffet. Here are a couple photos my husband took of some of the guests:
Top row, left to right: Darby Hinton, Rob Word, Robert Carradine, Wyatt McCrea, and Rudy Ramos. Bottom row: Patrick Wayne and Bruce Boxleitner. There were many other interesting guests on hand; the festival lineup was truly impressive.
Jay C. Munns provided the music again this year:
Some of the festival highlights included William Wellman Jr. introducing YELLOW SKY, which he watched being filmed in the Alabama Hills as a child:
I was able to see the second half of
PANHANDLE (1948) after returning from a tour, then watch an interview with star Rod Cameron's son Tony (right), who was quite knowledgeable about his father's career. I hope he'll return to a future festival.
It was also a joy to see Claude Jarman Jr. introduce ROUGHSHOD, which was filmed further up Highway 395, between Mono Lake and Bridgeport.
I don't think I'd seen BIG JAKE (1971) since I was a teenager; look for a review here at a future date. Prior to the film Patrick Wayne chatted with the audience for a bit, then he and costar Chris Mitchum shared memories with moderator Rob Word.
I happened to have my copy of the book in our car to read during the trip and was able to have him sign it! He was an absolutely delightful gentleman we enjoyed chatting with very much. I'll be reviewing VIVA HOLLYWOOD here in the future!
Later in the day I enjoyed purchasing a photo of Bruce Boxleitner and having him sign it for me. Having enjoyed him since his early TV work in HOW THE WEST WAS WON (1976-79) and EAST OF EDEN (1981), it was fun to do that! And he assured me he knew how to spell my name because "I was married to Laura Ingalls [Melissa Gilbert] for a long time." Below is an "action" shot as he was signing and chatting.
As time permits, I'm going to share my festival coverage in bite-sized posts of movie reviews, location photos, museum exhibits, and the Sunday parade, along with more coverage of last month's
D23 Expo. Stay tuned!
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2 Comments:
Oh, so exciting! This is one that I wish I could have attended, because of Patrick Wayne, Chris Mitchum, and Big Jake. It's my all-time favorite Western, and I dearly would have loved to hear their stories about it!!
Really looking forward to the bite-sized posts for more info on your festival experiences!
Agreed about Patrick and Big Jake. We had a young man, a teenager working for us. His father had died and oh my, how he related to Jacob McCandless. Quite a memory.
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