Western RoundUp: Lone Pine Film Festival 2024

Lone Pine Film Festival 2024

I had an amazing time again this year at the annual Lone Pine Film Festival held in Lone Pine, California.

This was the 34th festival, of which I’ve attended around 10. As has become our habit in recent years, we arrived in town a day ahead of the four-day event so my husband could prepare for his volunteer work guiding three horseback movie location tours.

Lone Pine, as I’ve written about here many times, was a filming location in hundreds of Westerns. The festival focuses mainly, though not exclusively, on movies shot in the Lone Pine area, and it includes numerous movie location tours along with screenings and discussions.

Below is a plaque in the Alabama Hills outside town, located at the intersection of Whitney Portal Road and Movie Road. It commemorates the extensive filming which has taken place here and was dedicated by Roy Rogers in 1990.

The festival got underway on Thursday, October 10th, with its annual opening night barbecue in the parking lot of Lone Pine’s Museum of Western Film History.

Festival guests seen at the barbecue included actor Bruce Boxleitner; Joel McCrea’s grandson Wyatt and his wife Lisa; and stuntman Diamond Farnsworth, son of actor-stuntman Richard Farnsworth:

Another opening night shot of film historians Scott Eyman with his wife, Lynn Kalber; Alan K. Rode; and Michael Blake.

Additional guests at this year’s festival included Patrick Wayne, Robert Carradine, Darby Hinton, Rory Flynn (daughter of Errol), Cheryl Rogers Barnett (daughter of Roy Rogers and stepdaughter of Dale Evans), Sandra Slepski (niece of actor Tom Tyler), and Jay Dee Witney (son of director William Witney).

The very congenial Rory Flynn is seen here with Rob Word before a screening of her father’s Rocky Mountain (1950) on Friday evening.

After the barbecue it was off to the Lone Pine High School auditorium for the opening night movie, a 75th anniversary screening of John Ford’s classic She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), starring John Wayne.

Prior to the movie moderator Rob Word interviewed Wayne’s son Patrick and Michael Blake. Blake, the son of actor Larry Blake and a renowned movie makeup artist in his own right, is also a film historian whose latest book is The Cavalry Trilogy: John Ford, John Wayne, and the Making of Three Classic Westerns. One of that trio, of course, is She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.

This year, in addition to She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, I enjoyed watching two episodes of Have Gun, Will Travel filmed in Lone Pine – “The Outlaw” and “The Bride” – along with a 28-minute short, The Prospector (1998), and four feature films, Rip Roarin’ Buckaroo (1936), The Arizona Ranger (1948), Cattle Empire (1958), and Trail of Robin Hood (1950).

Below, filmmakers Owen Renfroe and Jeremy Arnold with moderator C. Courtney Joyner after the screening of their very enjoyable short silent movie The Prospector, which was filmed entirely in the Alabama Hills:

Rip Roarin’ Buckaroo was accompanied by an interview of Tyler’s niece, Sandra Slepski, by Henry C. Parke; Tyler had lived with her family in his last years and she knew him well. Tyler also had supporting roles in two other films seen over the weekend, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Trail of Robin Hood.

Cattle Empire included Steve Latshaw interviewing Wyatt McCrea about the movie’s star, his grandfather Joel McCrea. It’s always a great pleasure to hear Wyatt’s remembrances of his grandfather.

In what Latshaw later told me was a “pinch me” moment, he interviewed Cheryl Rogers Barnett, Jay Dee Witney, and Republic Pictures expert Bart Romans at the Trail of Robin Hood screening. Barnett and Witney were both on the film’s set as young children, and Barnett even had a bit role with a line of dialogue asking costar Jack Holt for his autograph.

Trail of Robin Hood is a charming Western Christmas film which I wrote about here back in 2018. The movie is greatly loved by many, including director Quentin Tarantino; I find his love for this innocent movie a bit ironic given the types of movies he makes! In fact, when Tarantino filmed Django Unchained (2012) in Lone Pine he even used Trail of Robin Hood director William Witney’s clapperboard, which is on display in the museum:

I also had the pleasure of hearing Michael Curtiz biographer Alan K. Rode interviewed by Henry C. Parke regarding Curtiz’s The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), which filmed in Lone Pine and starred Errol Flynn.

One of my favorite experiences during the festival was an evening at Cuffe Ranch, which I’d never visited in previous trips to Lone Pine. George Montgomery filmed the Zane Grey tale Riders of the Purple Sage (1941) there, and a “waterfall” was created at the ranch in the location seen here.

What was a bit mind-blowing was that a water hose and plaster of Paris used by the production company are still in place on this rock over 80 years later! The hose is held here by Lone Pine tour guide coordinator Greg Parker.

Speaking of George Montgomery, he was also a talented artist, and his sculpture of Randolph Scott is one of my favorite things in the Museum of Western Film History. The chance to spend considerable time exploring the exhibits and memorabilia in the museum is another wonderful aspect of the festival.

Of course, it wouldn’t be the Lone Pine Film Festival without going on at least a couple of movie location tours! In addition to exploring the Alabama Hills with friends, we took two official festival tours this year, Don Kelsen’s Have Gun, Will Travel tour and Dennis Liff’s Nevada (1944) tour.

Below, a group can be seen investigating where Robert Mitchum filmed Nevada early in his career, on his way to movie stardom:

Here’s a beautiful Sunday morning shot of festival guests Jeremy Arnold, Diamond Farnsworth, and Wyatt McCrea, with Lone Pine Peak and Mount Whitney in the background. Mt. Whitney, seen in the deep background to the right of center, is the highest point in the contiguous United States.

Finally, a favorite photo of this author with some of the great people I was privileged to spend time with in Lone Pine this year, Alan K. Rode, Scott Eyman, and Bruce Boxleitner.

I’ve covered the festival and Lone Pine locations here numerous times over the years, and I invite anyone interested in Lone Pine’s history – or planning a trip! – to visit the past Western RoundUp columns linked below.

Lone Pine movie locations: 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.

Lone Pine Film Festival: 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2023.

For more information, please visit the Museum of Western Film History and Lone Pine Film Festival websites.

As can be seen from all of the above, the Lone Pine Film Festival is absolutely packed with many wonderful movie-related experiences, and I hope to see more of my readers there in 2025!

The photographs accompanying this article are from the author’s personal collection.

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– Laura Grieve for Classic Movie Hub

Laura can be found at her blog, Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings, where she’s been writing about movies since 2005, and on Twitter at @LaurasMiscMovie. A lifelong film fan, Laura loves the classics including Disney, Film Noir, Musicals, and Westerns.  She regularly covers Southern California classic film festivals.  Laura will scribe on all things western at the ‘Western RoundUp’ for CMH.