Lone Pine: All About Location, Location, Location

LONE PINE, Calif. — "Hi-yo Silver, away!" Those famous words still echo through the canyon where the masked man and his sidekick, Tonto, rode through the nearby Alabama Hills ridding the West of bad guys. The Alabama Hills, in the shadow of lofty Mt. Whitney, have been used since 1920 as a location in hundreds of films--and not just for Westerns.

Films requiring a foreign country's rocky, desert landscape--think Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, parts of the Middle East, Mexico and South America--have been shot there. Even films depicting lunar landscapes have been shot on location here, just three hours north of the Hollywood studios.

In his book, "On Location in Lone Pine," author Dave Holland noted that 272 movies had been shot here starring such actors as John Wayne, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Mel Gibson, Debbie Reynolds and Jodie Foster, among others. Cops chased Humphrey Bogart up Whitney Portal Road in the 1941 film "High Sierra"; the Alabama Hills stood in for the Andes when John Wayne starred in 1947's "Tycoon"; Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz almost slid off Whitney Portal Road in "The Long Long Trailer" (1955). The the list goes on.

Given all this, it's not surprising that Lone Pine celebrates its movie history with a yearly October festival featuring concerts in the hills, movie location tours and a Sunday parade. The 12th annual festival starts today with activities scheduled throughout the weekend.

Among selections this year will be Tom Mix in 1933's "Terror Trail"; Ken Maynard in 1934's "Wheels of Destiny"; the 1936 "Rhythm on the Range," featuring the song, "I'm an Old Cowhand" sung by Bing Crosby; Cesar Romero in 1939's "Cisco Kid"; Roy Rogers in 1939's "Saga of Death Valley"; one of John Wayne's first movies, the 1936 film "King of the Pecos"; Audie Murphy in 1960's "Hell Bent for Leather" and "Hopalong Cassidy-Public Hero No. 1," a 2001 documentary.

Guest stars include this year's grand marshal of the parade Loren Janes, who was in "How the West Was Won," Ben Cooper who starred in "The Outcast," Alex Cord from the 1966 version of "Stagecoach," Robert Fuller from in the hit series "Laramie," Herb Jeffries, the first African American movie hero in the '30s, and William Wellman Jr., who is the son of William A. Wellman and works as an actor, writer and producer.

"How the West Was Won" will be Saturday night's featured movie. Narrated by Spencer Tracy, the movie stars Debbie Reynolds, Gregory Peck, James Stewart, John Wayne and Eli Wallach.