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, as 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.

…

– 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.