Old West Revisited : Paramount Ranch’s 10th Anniversary Is a Celebration of California History

A Wells Fargo stagecoach will roar onto the Main Street movie set of Paramount Ranch, near Agoura, Sunday at 2 p.m, launching the 10th-anniversary celebration of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. Continuing until 6 p.m., the festivities will include an equestrian parade, a display of costumed characters from California history, vintage cars, bands and American Indian dancing.

Legal Controversy

Following years of legal controversy with residential developers, the federal government in 1978 granted the legal status to the recreation area. Paramount Ranch, located in an oak-dotted valley against stark mountains, is a focal point of the 150,000-acre recreation area. The 326-acre ranch was purchased in 1980 by the federal government, assuming its current dual role as an active film location--notably of Westerns--and site of the park’s recreational activities, such as social gatherings, lectures, horseback riding, nature walks and hiking.

The ranch land first became a part of the movie industry in 1921 when it was leased by film maker Jesse L. Lasky, an early film pioneer who, in 1914, co-produced the highly successful film “The Squaw Man.”

Lasky used the setting for many of his early pictures. In 1927, his company merged with Paramount Pictures Corp. The studio bought 4,000 acres between Ventura Boulevard and Mulholland Drive. With its broad grassland, its stream and open roadbed for riding, the site proved an ideal film location.

On a tour of Paramount Ranch, park ranger Alice Allen, who also doubles as a film coordinator, serves as guide, with facts and figures at her fingertips.

Allen points out that Paramount’s heyday at the ranch was between the mid-1920s and mid-1940s. During World War II, she says, when production costs became prohibitive, the studio sold its holdings and all of the original sets were razed.

In the early ‘50s, William Hertz, a would-be cowboy who loved everything about the West, bought the present site and slowly created the current version of a Western town from three existing storage buildings that remained on the site. Hertz also acquired some of 20th Century Fox’s false-front buildings when it closed its back lot in 1953 and added these to his growing town.

In reality, this Western town is a few streets of two-dimensional weathered buildings. Most prominent are the false half-timbered green hotel, the blue-and-white gambling casino, a branch of the Wells Fargo Bank and buildings with such signs as “Attorney at Law” and “Huckleby’s Feed and Grain.” In addition to a sagging but photogenic barn, other structures, riddled with bullet holes, recall how the West was won.

Films from the early days of TV-- “The Cisco Kid,” “Have Gun, Will Travel,” “Bat Masterson” and the “Zane Grey Theater” series all were shot here. Herds of elephants and, reportedly, more than 2,000 horses invaded the ranch for the filming of “The Adventures of Marco Polo.”

In Demand

Nowadays, the movie ranch is in hot demand. Allen, as coordinator of special projects, issues about 60 film permits each year to producers of feature and TV films and commercials. Sets often are altered through the use of props and sign changes to suggest, for example, a Mexican village or a turn-of-the-century town. She stresses movie making as an important cultural and economic resource.

“Films represent the first major industry in which the U.S. took the lead, and Hollywood made the world aware of American culture,” she said. “You can go anywhere in the world and say ‘Hollywood’ and people understand you.”

Historical films made at the ranch include Paramount’s “Border Legion” with Richard Arlen (1924), “Man From Wyoming” starring Gary Cooper (1930) and “Wells Fargo” featuring Joel McCrea, Bob Burns and Frances Dee (1937).

(Allen also conducts an annual Halloween event, creating special effects for young people (ages about 10-15). This year’s class will be held next Saturday. Bob Short, special-effects artist for “Splash” and part of the team for “E. T.,” will demonstrate how to make monsters and ghouls. Reservations: (818) 888-3770.)

Allen explained that the Park Service is interested in preserving more than the film industry. The Oak Habitat Restoration Project, a study of the special ecology of Valley oaks, has been under way for the past six years. A changing environmental system has jeopardized the trees, according to Allen.

Paramount Ranch can be explored daily during daylight hours. There’s a sylvan green meadow to observe, which serves both as recreation area and unspoiled-by-development backdrop for photography. Additionally, the dry landscape is mitigated somewhat by banks of willows seeking water from the slow-moving Medea Creek, while sycamores, walnut and toyon line the inviting nature trails.

All events Sunday are free. Bring a picnic lunch and wear a Western costume.

To reach the ranch from Los Angeles, take Ventura Freeway north; exit left on Kanan Road; about 1 mile south to Sidewind; right on Cornell Road about 2 1/2 miles to entrance on right. Information: (818) 888-3770.