Western RoundUp: Lone Pine Locations 2024

Lone Pine Locations

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been a full year since this column last spent time looking at Western locations outside Lone Pine, California.

As many readers will be aware, hundreds of Westerns were filmed in the Alabama Hills and other areas surrounding the small town of Lone Pine, California, located on Highway 395 a couple hundred miles north of Los Angeles.

I’m typically in Lone Pine a couple times a year, and my visits usually include exploring a few movie locations outside town. Most of the Alabama Hills photos in this article were taken during my visits in the 2022 and 2023.

I begin with the Randolph Scott film The Nevadan (1950), which was directed by Gordon Douglas and costars Dorothy Malone and Forrest Tucker.

Here’s a screenshot of Malone in the film:

And here’s that exact spot today:

Forrest Tucker stood at a mine in the movie which can be seen in this scene:

As can be slightly seen from the screenshot, he’s actually standing in a dip in the ground which is still there today, next to the low rock in the front right of this photo. The “mine” front was built over the rock.

Here are Scott and Tucker in a scene from the film:

And here my husband Doug poses with the same rocks in the background. It’s fun to line up what we’re looking at standing in the hills with screen shots and realize when we’re in the right place!

Next we’ll visit a location from another Randolph Scott film, Ride Lonesome (1959), which was directed by Budd Boetticher. I’ve previously shared the campsite location which opens the film. Here’s a screenshot of the isolated stagecoach station in the distance:

And here’s that location today. Compare the rocks in the background, including the large rounded section.

And from Scott and Boetticher’s 7 Men From Now (1956) we have a fun comparison shot. At the top is Scott confronting Lee Marvin for the climactic gunfight. At the bottom my husband is standing in the same spot. We happened to have a toy rifle which belonged to one of our sons which he used to recreate the shot.

Next we’ll pay a quick visit to Yellow Sky (1948), another film I’ve shared location photos from in the past. Yellow Sky starred Gregory Peck and Richard Widmark, directed by William Wellman. Here’s a screenshot of Anne Baxter aiming a rifle through a triangle in some rocks:

Here’s the triangle today, including a closeup with members of a tour group visible through the hole:

Another favorite Lone Pine Western is Henry Hathaway’s Rawhide (1951), starring Tyrone Power and Susan Hayward.

My husband put together a spiral-bound screenshot notebook of places we wanted to track down. When Power and Hayward are sitting in the station doorway in the last scene of the movie, they were approximately where the notebook is being held, looking toward the rocks in the background of our photo.

And here’s a fun comparison shot with Doug standing approximately where Power stands in another scene in the movie.

The Alabama Hills is an endlessly fascinating spot for Western fans. There are many resources available to help find locations, and the annual October film festival features many tours by experienced guides. I encourage anyone interested to make the trek to Lone Pine!

For additional Western RoundUp columns on Lone Pine locations, including previous location photos from Ride Lonesome, Yellow Sky, and Rawhide, please visit my columns from 2018, 2021, and 2023.

The photographs and screenshots 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.