Corriganville Stages a 3-Day Comeback

Film crews descended on Corriganville Park this week for the first time in more than 36 years. Synthetic Filmworks was there to shoot a made-for-cable-TV movie, “Shadow Force,” at the historic movie ranch.

Gunfire erupted as ersatz U.S. Army Rangers, and “freedom fighters” clashed with drug-cartel mercenaries during a daring rescue mission.

Seven-hundred rounds of ammunition--blanks, of course--were fired near the Santa Susana Pass.

Corriganville was serving as the fictional Central American country of San Cedros, where a team of U.S. Rangers, led by Daniel Baldwin from TV’s “Homicide: Life on the Streets,” was trying to free a captured comrade and save a small village from a powerful drug lord.

Director Fred Olen Ray said the three-day shoot went smoothly despite problems caused by unexpected noise pollution.

“The only deterrent we’ve had is the airplanes,” he said.

“We must be under some sort of holding pattern for airplanes, and the canyon sort of magnifies it and makes it last forever.”

The script for “Shadow Force” was written by Chatsworth resident and Corriganville Preservation Committee member Steve Latshaw, a film buff thrilled to see the ranch used again for film productions.

“It’s kind of cool to actually be standing where you know that John Wayne and these guys did ‘Fort Apache,’ ” Ray said.