A Century Of Western Movie Locations

A complete guide to Westerns produced for theaters, TV, and home video between 1980 and 2010. Over 600 were produced and they are listed with production company, director, cast, and filming locations. There are descriptions and filmographies for over 230 movie sites in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Spain, outlining their history and reconstructing their filmographies from their origins until today. The book is amply illustrated with location photographs and movie stills.

Western films have often been tributes to place and setting, with the magnificent backdrops mirroring the wildness of the narratives. As the splendid outdoor scenery of Westerns could not be found on a studio back lot or on a Hollywood sound stage, the movies have been filmed in the wide open spaces of the American West and beyond. This book chronicles the history of filming Westerns on location, from shooting on the East Coast in the early 1900s; through the use of locations in Utah, Arizona, and California in the 1940s and 1950s; and filming Westerns in Mexico, Spain, and other parts of the world in the 1960s. Also studied is the relationship between the filming location timeline and the evolving motion picture industry of the twentieth century, and how these factors shaped audience perceptions of the "Real West."

The moderate climate and majestic western landscapes of New Mexico make it an enchanting locale for the motion picture industry. Thomas A. Edison's crew shot the very first film in the state at the Isleta Indian Pueblo in 1897. Silent-era icons like directors Romaine Fielding and Tom Mix shortly followed to take over the small town of Las Vegas, setting the stage for an explosion of western movies. Today, New Mexico's generous incentive programs and quality facilities make it one of the top filming destinations in the country, attracting big projects like the Academy Award-winning No Country for Old Men and AMC's critically acclaimed television series Breaking Bad. In this comprehensive volume, local author and film historian Jeff Berg explores the history and legacy of New Mexico on the big screen.

Table of contents

Frontier dramas were among the most popular and successful of early-twentieth-century Broadway type plays. The long runs of contemporary dramas not only indicate the popularity of these plays but also tell us that these plays offered views about the frontier that original audiences could and did embrace.

In Search of Western Movie Sites is a compilation of 64 articles written for the bi-monthly newsletter Western Clippings by Carlo Gaberscek and Kenny Stier. They are profoundly convinced of the fundamental importance of landscapes and natural exteriors in westerns. These articles are listed regionally, starting with the Southwestern states (Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada), progressing to California, the Northwest, Midwest, and Southern states, followed by Canada, and finishing with Mexico. They focus on the making of both A and B-westerns in a single state or a specific area of a state, and contain selected filmographies and detailed information on the locations. They envision a vast atlas of western cinema, a map of both real and imagined places constructed by Hollywood. This book, which includes over 200 stills and photos taken on location, is a guide to thousands of western film locations.

Over 160 western movie locations in the Southern California area are detailed in this book by location expert Jerry L. Schneider. With over 2,000 maps, aerial photographs, illustrations, stills, and film captures, this is the most lavishly illustrated book about the western movie locations ever published. Histories of each location along with extensive filmographies of each location is included.