Monday, April 11, 2011

Yellow Sky: The House and Barn (The Alabama Hills Series)

(GPS: N36 35.960 W118 06.730)

Here is one I have put off for quite some time. Each time I visit I feel I can do better. Even now, with what I have, I still feel I can do better, but I am tired of waiting around on this one so here we go.

Along with the Boetticher movies filmed at the Alabama Hills, Yellow Sky (1948) is one of my favorite westerns. They made good use out of the area here. While they filmed some of the beginning of the movie in Death Valley, the rest of it was filmed in this particular area of the Alabama Hills.

Although nothing remains of the set pieces of the house and barn they used in the movie, where they were is easy to find there.

My picture from a distance. Although at first glance it may seem complicated, the rocks are easy to pick out. You can click the pictures to make them bigger and check. The scene where Gregory Peck's comes to the house and Anne Baxter confronts him.In the video I did not get it as precise as I normally might. Even here I would want to move a few more feet to the left. In any case, the conversation would have been close to here. The house would have been just to my right. Later on in the movie, Peck uses a "white flag" in order to talk to Anne Baxter and her grandfather who are hidden in "sniper position" above in the rocks. Again, here you can see where the house and barn would have been.This is where that would have been.In the movie it really does look like Anne Baxter and grandfather are really high up in those rocks. After all they had to yell out to each other, and you hear the echo when they speak. Not really. I would say it was just over 20 feet or so. A nice optical illusion they used.My video for this one:

YS: House and Barn (Youtube Version)

YS: House and Barn (Vimeo Version)