Celebrating a Silver Anniversary
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Lone Pine Film Festival celebrates Eastern Sierra’s cinematic legacy for 25th Year
n 1989, Lone Pine business owners Kerry and Ray Powell teamed with author/film historian Dave Holland and a group of fellow business and community leaders in a plan to pay tribute to the extensive Hollywood heritage of the Alabama Hills. At that time, the area had been seen in hundreds of feature films, TV programs and cliffhanger serials, most of them Westerns. Hollywood’s longstanding love affair with the unique landscape of the Eastern Sierras had cooled somewhat, and film historians had largely overlooked the tradition of moviemaking in Inyo County. But Lone Pine’s rich cinematic history could not be denied. The Alabama Hills and surrounding Eastern Sierra terrain had been used in movies made by such prominent directors as John Ford, Cecil B. DeMille, William Wellman, William Wyler, Budd Boetticher, Henry King and William Witney. The stars who worked here were legendary, the standouts being John Wayne, Spencer Tracy, Gregory Peck, Gary Cooper, Humphrey Bogart, Randolph Scott, Tom Mix, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and William “Hopalong Cassidy” Boyd. As part of the Lone Pine community’s planned tribute, they would recognize these myriad actors, directors and producers who had been coming to make films in Lone Pine since the 1920s. The result of Holland, the Powells and the other Lone Pine residents’ efforts, in 1990, was the first cinemacentric festival held in Lone Pine called the Sierra Film Festival, Oct. 6-7. The festival was co-sponsored by Kerry and Ray Powell, who owned the Best Western Frontier Motel, along with the Inyo Council for the Arts, California Arts Council and the Lone Pine Chamber of Commerce. It was a unique event. For two days, attendees were treated to screenings of films – big-budget movies and lowly B Westerns alike, some of them quite rare – largely shot in the Alabama Hills. The first page in the first-ever Film Festival Program Guide featured a proclamation acknowledging a debt of gratitude to Roy Rogers, whose first starring role was filmed here in 1938 and who visited Lone Pine in 1990 to
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Twenty-five years ago during the first Film Festival, Roy Rogers dedicated the plaque at Movie Flats recognizing the area’s illustrious film history. Rogers’ first starring role was filmed here in 1938.
dedicate a historical marker that was placed at Whitney Portal and Movie Road. The bronze plaque reads: Movie Flats – Lone Pine Since 1920, hundreds of films and TV episodes including “Gunga Din,” “How the West Was Won,” “King of the Khyber Rifles,” “High Sierra,” along with the “Lone Ranger” and “Bonanza,” with such stars as Tom Mix, Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, Gary Cooper, Gene Autry, Glenn Ford, Humphrey Bogart, and John Wayne have filmed in these rugged Alabama Hills with the majestic Sierra Nevada background. Plaque dedicated by Roy Rogers, whose first starring role was filmed here in 1938. Plaque placed by E Clampus Vitus, Chap. 395 Date: October 7, 1990 Celebrity guests the first year included not just Roy Rogers, but also Terry Moore, Michael Gross, Richard Farnsworth, Rand Brooks, Eddie Dean, Linda Hayes, Pierce Lyden, Loren Janes, Jack Williams, William Witney, Irene Cuffe and Joe Yrigoyen – a mix of actors, directors and stuntmen who had worked on those films and others made at Lone Pine. The Sierra Film Festival trumped similar events with an innovation that left indelible impressions on those fortunate
LONE PINE FILM FESTIVAL 2014
enough to take advantage of it Holland, who moderated panel discussions with the guests, mapped out a tour of locations in the Hills where specific scenes of the famous movies being shown had been shot. He tape-recorded a narration to be played on buses that drove attendees directly from the film screenings to the Alabamas. In other words, attendees could watch a movie in the morning and then in the afternoon visit the spots where its memorable scenes had been staged and photographed. An unqualified success, the Sierra Film Festival – originally intended as a one-off tribute – became a yearly event that was soon drawing more than a thousand people from all across the country and around the world.. In 1993 it was renamed the Lone Pine Film Festival and year after year the Festival showcased movies, both obscure and well known, that had been produced in the area. The guest lists have included major stars and B-Western stalwarts alike. Folks like “Gunga Din’s” Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and “Yellow Sky’s” Gregory Peck rubbed shoulders with former Republic Pictures cowboy icon Roy Rogers and ingénue Peggy Stewart as well as veteran stuntmen like Loren
Janes, Richard Farnsworth and his son, Diamond. Lone Pine’s singular history was enriched with the anecdotes they shared with attendees about working in the Alabama Hills. Here we are 25 years later with the Lone Pine Film Festival continuing to simultaneous highlight and preserve the area’s rich movie-making legacy – a task undertaken year round at the Lone Pine Film History Museum. This year’s Silver Anniversary is not only a testament to the dreams of a community, but to the love, admiration and appreciation movie fans the world over have for the Western film genre and the landscape of the Eastern Sierra. Festival events in 2014 pay tribute to both – and toast to a successful quartercentury of celebrating movie magic. Even as we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the festival, we are already making plans for the future. During the 2015 festival, we will honor the memory of Tom Mix on the 75th anniversary of his death with the theme, “Silents Please!” The festival will highlight a number of silent films, with a live accompanist, filmed in the Lone Pine area. Among the films will be an encore presentation of “The Roundup” as well as films featuring stars Mix, Buck Jones and Hoot Gibson.