Old Tucson Studios (134) - (from Tucson)

Our 40 minute trip to Old Tucson Studios was a beautiful drive through a large Sonora desert. The studios are quite close to the Arizona-Tucson Desert Museum and the vista is this area is truly unique, an absolute pleasure to drive. I didn’t mention previously, but this was the second time we’d come to visit the studio, as the first day we tried they were closed. Today we arrived just before 11am and were surprised with the lack of other tourists – in hindsight, we shouldn’t have been surprised as this was a weekday and despite the sunny day today, we’re here in winter.

The site for more than 300 film and television projects since 1939, Old Tucson Studios is one of the most active filming locations for Western-themed movies, television, cable shows and commercials in the United States. This year marks their 72nd year as an Arizona film location, often referred to as “Hollywood in the Desert”.

Old Tucson Studios came to life in 1939 when Columbia Pictures chose a Pima County-owned site on which to build a replica of 1860’s Tucson for the movie Arizona. The $2.5 million film, starring William Holden and Jean Arthur, set a new standard of realism for Hollywood westerns, initiating the move away from studio backdrop movies to outdoor epics.

Local technicians and carpenters built the town from scratch, erecting more than 50 buildings in 40 days. Descendants of the Tohono O’odham, Arizona’s first inhabitants formerly known as the Papago, assisted in the set production. Without the convenience of running water, they made more than 350,000 adobe bricks from the desert dirt to create authentic structures for the film and many of those structures still stand today.

After the filming of Arizona, Old Tucson Studios lay dormant under the desert sun. The studio was revived only briefly for the film The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945), starring Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman. Hollywood then began taking notice of Old Tucson Studios, which soon became a favorite filming location, hence, “Hollywood in the Desert.” In 1947, Gene Autry starred in The Last Roundup followed in 1950 by Jimmy Stewart in Winchester ‘73, and Ronald Reagan in The Last Outpost.

During the 1950’s, the Western movie era was in full swing nationwide. In the fifties alone, such western classics as Gunfight at the OK Corral (1956) with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold (1957), and Cimarron (1959) with Glenn Ford were filmed at Old Tucson Studios.

Different activities are planned at scheduled times throughout each day. There are can-can ladies performing routines in the Grand Palace Hotel and Saloon, a shootout in the streets that led on to a roof (and back to the ground when he was shot), stunt shows, comedy routines and snake-oil salesmen selling their wares. They were very strict with attendance at some of the events as the studio area was also part of the stage. Thus, if you arrived late after the show had begun, the entrance was roped off and you needed to stand behind fences and the roped off barrier, attempting to glance through and between other late-comers at what was happening.

Other than scheduled events, we rode a stage coach on a tour through the studios and out to some of the more distant buildings a few hundred metres away, a haunted mine tour (Chantelle decided she'd rather not see, so she and I sat in some welcome shade in a beautiful little side street watching the passing people and stage coaches), horse rides, a merry-go-round and an electric car, guided and powered by a rail on the ground that wound through the desert. Despite the electric track, steering was necessary and Rochelle, my driver, was greatly amused as we banged into both sides of the rail at each corner, which ended up in raucous laughter from both of us.

During the western movie boom of the 1950’s, many of the stars stayed at the nearby Flamingo Hotel, built in 1952. Now renovated, the Flamingo Hotel has on display hundreds of rare and original movie posters, lobby cards, and photographs from nearly all of the over 70 films shot at Old Tucson Studios.

In 1959, Midwest entrepreneur Robert Shelton saw more than an antiquated movie set at Old Tucson Studios. He saw potential for expanding it from the ghost town it had become into a viable movie studio and family attraction. Shelton leased the property from Pima County and began to restore the forgotten town. Old Tucson Studios re-opened in 1960 as a film studio and a family fun park as well.

The park continued to grow, literally building by building, with each movie filmed on its dusty streets. Western film legend John Wayne soon became friends with Shelton, starred in four movies at Old Tucson Studios and each production added buildings to the town. Rio Bravo (1959) added a saloon, bank building and doctor’s office; from MCLINTOCK! (1963) came the McLintock Hotel; El Dorado (1967) left Old Tucson Studios with a facelift on Front Street; and from Rio Lobo (1970) came a cantina, a granite lined creek, a jail and Phillip’s ranch house.

The stampede of movie productions during those early years include, Lilies of the Field (1962) starring Sidney Poitier ; Have Gun Will Travel (1962); The Outrage (1964) and Hombre (1966) with Paul Newman; and episodes of Bonanza (1966, ‘71, ‘72); and High Chaparral (1966-’71).

Old Tucson Studios became the premier, privately owned, western film location. In 1968, a 13,000 square foot soundstage was built to give Old Tucson Studios complete movie-making versatility. The first film to use the soundstage was Young Billy Young (1968), starring Robert Mitchum and Angie Dickenson.

In the decade that followed, Old Tucson Studios experienced tremendous growth. In 1970-’71 alone, the studio hosted 15 film productions including Dirty Dingus Magee (1970) with Frank Sinatra and Joe Kidd (1971) starring Clint Eastwood. Paul Newman returned to Old Tucson, for The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972). Other films during this period include Death Wish (1974) starring Charles Bronson; The Last Hard Men (1975) with Charleton Heston and James Coburn; The Villain (1978) which starred Kirk Douglas and Ann Margaret and The Frisco Kid (1979) starring Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford, fresh from his stint as Han Solo in Star Wars.

From 1970 to 1980 Old Tucson Studios and its Mescal property (forty miles south of Tucson Studios) hosted 77 film and television productions. Little House on the Prairie (1977-1983) starring Michael Landon;  Gunsmoke (1972-74) with James Arness; The Mark of Zorro (1974) and The New Maverick (1978) with James Garner.

The Studios have an antique carousel, a train depot and narrow-gauge train, antique car rides and an 1872 steam locomotive, The Reno. Bob Shelton purchased the authentic train from MGM and brought it to Old Tucson Studios in 1970 - it has since been featured in hundreds of films and television shows.

Old Tucson Studios became part of the made-for-television movie trend of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s with major films as well, most notably Three Amigos (1986) starring Chevy Chase, Steve Martin and Martin Short.

The nineties brought their share of movie stars to Old Tucson and Mescal to follow in the famous footsteps of their predecessors. Some of the films became classics and some, well, didn’t. But Tombstone (1993) with Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer; Lightning Jack (1993) starring Paul Hogan and Cuba Gooding, Jr., and The Quick and the Dead (1994) with Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio showed that westerns were popular again.

In total, we spent about 5 hours there, and during our visit we, met a group of nearly 40 parents, teachers and students from various Australian High Schools, from as far apart as Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney. It had been a great day of fun and exploring, but around 4 o'clock we needed to call it quits and return home through that beautiful desert. The Titan Missile Museum was the next place to visit, and as our time in Tucson was coming to an end, tomorrow was to be the day.