John Wayne Was Here: The Film Locations and Favorite Places of an American Icon

Thanks so much for the kind words, Mark!

CinemaRetro is a US/UK movie magazine with a worldwide readership. I highly recommend it, as it covers the great movie era of the 60s and 70s. For its newest issue, I had the pleasure to contribute a story about "The Longest Day Locations". It's not just about the making of this epic but also about finding and revisiting the original filming sites in France. I hope you enjoy it!

https://cinemaretro.com/index.php?/archives/12018-CINEMA-RETRO-SEASON-19-IS-HERE!-RENEW-OR-SUBSCRIBE-TODAY..html

Congrats! Well done itdo

I've recently been able to conduct another location search in Red Rock Canyon State Park and could pin down the locations of "Pals of the Saddle": that's on the far end of Hagen Canyon, the spot where they also took this publicity photo.

The interesting thing to find was they chose all locations within a very small perimeter - in B-movie mode, they actually just turned the camera around to shoot in another direction. That's how one can find all these locations in the same spot in Hagen Canyon. That's where the 3 Mesquiteers run up a boulder, to ambush the bad guys from above...

Ray Corrigan and Max Terhune hide behind this rock to free John Wayne who's lying tied up in this wagon...

mesquiteers2.pngIMG_3195.jpg

...and then trade shots, sitting up in the rocks to the right, with the bad guys in the wagons down below.

Even more stunning is the fact that 20 years after this B-movie shoot-out, Anthony Mann picked the exact same spot to build the ghost town for Gary Cooper's showdown in "Man of the West" - and that same year, William Wyler came back with Gregory Peck for "The Big Country" and re-used the structures to locate the Hennessy Ranch in "Blanco Canyon". So, if you watch carefully, in both films you will see the "Pals of the Saddle" location in the background...

Find more locations on Duke-locations.com

10 years back, I was able to find the exact location of "King of the Pecos" in the Alabama Hills: a little canyon close to what is called "The Lone Ranger Canyon" was the setting for a little cat and mouse game John Wayne and the baddie played before their final showdown.

When I recently tracked back to Lone Pine and revisited that spot (it has since been used by Tarantino for a campfire scene in "Django"), I noticed another thing: it's the same little canyon they used for the ambush scene in "Westward Ho!"

It's not that it would be a problem in the Alabama Hills to find another canyon! But I find it interesting to point out how Republic worked as a film factory with an assembly line for westerns. Even though the films were made by different directors (Kane and Bradbury) and not in the same year (1935 and 1936), they still came back to the same place.

On my recent stay in Lone Pine, I revisited the "Tycoon" location, a terrain called Ruiz Hills. I find it fascinating to still find plaster of the huge tunnel entrance the RKO production designers created, and it never fails to amaze me that some 75+ years after the making, you'll still find the iron hooks on both sides of the fake tunnel entrance, that held the huge construction up. Some durable production design!

That's the exact location where they put the construction crew camp. The production designers had a number of movie classics to their credit, among them King Kong and Mary Poppins.

The tunnel entrance actually had a certain length, to combine studio sets of the tunnel with shots filmed towards the real background of the Alabama Hills. The photo was taken from the exact same angle. The road with the tracks is actually a dead end, bulldozed by the production to the stone wall, to give the impression that John Wayne can ride a railroad car in and out of the tunnel.

On my recent visit to Red Rock Canyon IMG_8856.jpg3.pngPark, I was able to find this location from LAWLESS FRONTIER. When you come up Hagen Canyon, it's just a bit off to the right of the marked path. This 1934 western had an unusual chase scene here: John Wayne follows the bad guy by foot, because of the extreme heat they cannot run. The chase ends at a poisened waterhole which the production company put there.

Find more info on Red Rock Canyon on my Locations Website: https://www.duke-locations.com/us-filming-sites/california/

Speaking of places where John Wayne was...I read that his California ranch, Rancho Pavoreal, was recently sold. It is in or near Hemet, CA which is fascinating to me because my mother's side of the family had some roots there; though they have long moved on.