The Charge Of The Light Brigade | 1936

Exciting adventurer, with little or nothing to do with the 'Crimea', but notorious for the death of 25 horses during the filming of the climactic charge, which thankfully resulted in laws to protect animals used in motion pictures being brought in.

A full-scale replica of the 'Chukoti Garrison', the Indian fortress, was built at what was called Lasky Mesa, a 7,000 acre tract of land at the west end of Victory Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley west of Woodland Hills, north of Los Angeles.

Named after pioneer producer Jesse L Lasky, co-founder with Adolf Zukor of Paramount Pictures, the area was unflatteringly described by Olivia de Havilland in her autobiography as a desolate windswept spot, dry, covered in tumbleweed and crawling with tarantulas. Nevertheless, it provided an adaptable backdrop for Hollywood’s burgeoning movie industry. Scenes for countless productions including such classics as Gone With The Wind, The Grapes Of Wrath and They Died With Their Boots On, were filmed here.

It went on to be known as the Ahmanson Ranch and, after much wrangling, the land has been preserved from redevelopment, and forms part of the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve.

Much of the 'Northwest Frontier' was filmed in the Alabama Hills, near Lone Pine on I-395, Inyo County, central California, striking rock formations which provide a dramatic visual setting, overlooked by the snow-capped peaks of the Sierra Nevada range.

The location was once Hollywood’s go-to region for exotic mountain landscapes, such as Gunga Din and King of the Khyber Rifles (1953) and The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935).

In more recent years, the Hills have appeared in the likes of 1965 comedy The Great Race, Marvel's Iron Man, John Sturges' 1955 Bad Day At Black Rock, Kalifornia and Tremors.

You’ll find the Hills off Whitney Portal Road, west of the town of Lone Pine. If you’re visiting, don’t forget that Lone Pine is now home to the Museum of Western Film History, and hosts the annual Lone Pine Film Festival.

The (entirely fictitious) massacre of women and children by the forces of villain Surat Khan, was filmed at Lake Sherwood, a reservoir south of Thousand Oaks in the Santa Monica Mountains.

 

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