The Upper Iverson’s main asset was its almost mile-long “running insert” or chase road.  This is where any form of traveling action could be photographed at speed from a camera car.  Anything from a rider simply trotting along, to a runaway stage or wagon, a galloping posse and so on, would be filmed by the camera car keeping up with the action.  It would be the responsibility of the Aaron Iverson to see that the road was kept smooth and maintained for such a common task.  Generally a production companies second-unit would shoot these scenes using stunt people, whilst the close-ups of the stars whatever, would be shot on the safety of a studio stage using rear screen projection. If an actor on location was to be only seen from a distance, then a stand-in or stunt double would be used.  None of the actors, particularly John Wayne, ever went to Monument Valley for Stagecoach (1939).  The next time you see that classic, look closely.  The Upper Iverson had its share of “rock stars” as with “Ambush Rock”, appropriately named because of the small passage between two large rocks that could easily conceal a bushwhacker or sniper as in Quantrill’s Raiders (1958).  There’s a rock shaped like a whale that’s quite clearly seen as such in Boots Malone (1952) starring William Holden.  Amongst the clutter of rocks, there were plenty of trees and shrubs too.  Here you’d find the odd “hideout” shack popular in many a western story.  For the 1950’s TV show Fury (1955), the producers left Iverson with a magnificent barn and corral set that was later seen in The30ft Bride of Candy Rock (1959), Lou Costello’s last movie appearance.  The largest and most famous standing set to be left to the Iverson’s, was a western town specially built for Along Came Jones (1945).  Believe it or not, prior to 1945 there was never any western town set at Iverson’s.  The strange thing is why the star and producer of Along Came Jones (1945), Gary Cooper ,saw the need for one with so many existing sets within the Studio Zone already.  Yet, after going to all that expense and trouble, he would just walk away from it and never use it again.  The sprawling set was actually located in the middle flat area of the ranch, not exactly “upper” or “lower”, a neutral area that both brothers shared the profits of.  The Wee Willie Winkie (1937) set had been previously built on this spot, and was later adapted as a Mexican village.  The legendary Gary Cooper starred in several big budget pictures at Iverson’s, Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1936) and The Real Glory (1939) where it doubled for the Philippines.  He later returned to the ranch when it was the old West once again in Dallas (1950).  Bob Hope, Roy Rogers and Jane Russell were taking on an Indian attack in Cooper’s western town for Son of Paleface (1952).  John Payne had trouble here too in El Paso (1949).  It was almost totally deserted when Gene Autry rode into town for The Hills of Utah (1951). In late September 1943, Republic pictures started filming one of the largest productions to ever set foot on Iverson soil The Fighting Seabees (1944).  The studio transformed the ranch into a South Pacific island, where the U.S. Navy Seabees had to build an airstrip whilst under fire from Japanese snipers hidden in the palm trees.  As there were no such trees or anything remotely tropical on the ranch, studio crews rounded up some old telegraph poles and brown cut palm leaves, painted them green nailed them to the poles and positioned them just so for the camera.  Having planes land on the constructed airstrip was another editorial illusion.  Because there was not enough of a smooth strip to land on, a plane would approach the runway and just as it was about to touch down it would pull up and fly on -only what we saw was an assumed landing, a plane about to touch down and in the next shot it is seen taxing to a stop.  As an audience we assume it’s the same plane.  For take-offs, the process was used in reverse.  What’s more troubling though, is how a “B” movie studio like Republic, was able to secure so much actual real Seebee manpower and equipment during the middle of World War II.  Such is the power of Hollywood or rather the U.S. governments need to keep morale boosted whatever the cost.    

Much of John Wayne's WWII film The Fighting Seabees was shot at the Ranch. (Photo: Graham Hill collection)

Although there were numerous “A” pictures filmed at both ranches, the real bread-and-butter were the “B” westerns.  For that it was ground-zero.  Every white-hat wearing cowboy, every black-hat wearing cowboy, every singing-cowboy, every side-kick and side-winder you can think of, all rode the Iverson range.  At times there was so much shooting, that on any given day it wasn’t unusual to find an MGM company shooting on the “upper” ranch, Republic on the “lower” and Paramount in the “middle”.  And don’t think that at times not only were the actors and crew confused, as the wranglers in charge of the livestock and wagons would typically be using the same animals and livery on all three productions that same day.  At only 500-acres,  Iverson’s it always looked much larger on screen mainly due to the fact that so much of the surrounding area looked just the same.  This lent itself to wide pristine panoramic shots.  Just up the hill from Iverson’s on Santa Susana Pass road, was the small run-down Spahn Ranch; later to become infamous for being the home of killer Charles Manson and his followers.                                                                                                 

Beyond that the Bell ranch who’s final credit was Sunset (1988) with Bruce Willis and James Garner.  The Brandeis Ranch was adjacent to Iverson’s and next to that was the famed Corriganville.  It really was a movie ranch community in that part of the Studio Zone.

In their day, the movie ranches all prospered.  However, by the mid-1960s, the changes in Hollywood studios were selling off their backlot real estate in favor of shooting in more exotic locations. This was the death knell of a place like Iversons’s. Even with the abundance of TV westerns, shows like Steve McQueen’s Wanted Dead or Alive (1958), The Texan (1958), Track-down (1958)  and some forty others, it was starting to resemble the last round-up.  As the only color western on the air, Bonanza (1959) spent almost the first six seasons at Iverson’s,  serving as the location of The Ponderosa.  Watching TV back then, you could easily be forgiven for thinking that the whole West was nothing but rocks.  However, without the boulders, you wouldn’t have anything for those thousands of bullets to ricochet off of. There would be no place to ambush anybody from behind.  No place to hide stolen horses and cattle and no place to “cut-em’ off at the pass”.  In Iverson’s case, the threat of being cut off was literally the coming of the new construction of the Simi Valley freeway.  By the 1970’s it did just that, coming through the middle section of the ranch.  What with the traffic noise and more and more civil aircraft flying overhead, the ranch was fast becoming redundant.  On September 26^th, 1970, it was consumed by a raging brush fire whipped up by 80-mile-an-hour winds.  With flames as high as 60 feet, the massive fire charred over 100,000 acres in the area.  It destroyed numerous Iverson sets, including what was left of the already decaying western town.

Buster Keaton bathed at an Iverson watering hole in the 1923 comedy Three Ages. (Photo: Kevin Closson)

The same location today as photographed by Kevin Closson.

As for the Iverson brothers, Aaron - faced with little location revenue plus rising taxes - sold his ranch first.  Then in the 1980’s after Joe died, a family relative started sub-dividing the ranch and then finally sold the original homestead itself.  Joe would have surely turned in his grave.  In fact, if he had been buried on the Lower Iverson, he would have been cut to pieces when the huge earth-moving machines started to re-grade the whole place.  Before there was time for environmentalists or movie history preservation groups to start a campaign, developers had the historic rocks re-arranged for maximum development potential.  They were literally crushed, pushed aside and buried as  new condo-style townhouses  sprung up looking completely out of place amongst the remaining majestic rocks that were spared.  All the rocks that I have mentioned, by some strange fate survived, not because of  a change of heart by the developers, but probably because it was easier to build around them.  You can still visit them today, as the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy managed to protect “The Garden of The Gods”.  Jutting out for all to see at the entrance to the Lower Ranch, now the development “Nyoka Rock”, it’s still there with its solitary tree.  The rock from The Lone Ranger (1949), is there too - as you drive up Red Mesa, bear  to the right.  However, the trail Clayton Moore followed each week leading up to it, well that’s gone. The site of the western town became just another mobile home park and it’s located right next to the busy freeway.  The Upper Iverson became known as Indian Falls Estates, an architectually-challenged gated community for extremely well-healed city slickers. In 1994, when I produced my Matinee Ranch documentary on Iverson’s, one-acre parcels of empty lots sold for $1 million each.  My personal salute to the world’s greatest movie ranch was produced as a demo for a more professional production that wasn’t to be.  As with most things aimed at preservation and education, it failed to attract any attention.  The Iverson movie ranch was a fabulous wonderland, where just about every rock could tell a story.  Even in its day, few people ever knew it existed.  After eighty or more years of seeing every movie genre making use of the Iverson scenery, the very last official filming at the ranch was on July 28^th, 1997, for Motorcycle Cheerleading Mamas.  Needless to say, it wasn’t a western.  That’s a wrap for now, but if you would like to know more about the Iverson Ranch or any Hollywood history, especially from someone who has spent forty years in the business –then I would very much like to hear from you at- grahamhill007@sbcglobal.net