Thursday, January 14, 2010

Right Angle Gunfights Location (Corriganville Series)

(GPS: N34° 15. 835 W118° 39.285)

It is time to open up another series that should show up on here from time to time. This is another area that was a long time in coming. I have been to Corriganville many times in recent years, but I have never put anything on the blog about it. Much like Iverson Ranch, which is just a few miles right next to Corriganville, it was close enough to Hollywood to be used, re-used, and used in tons of westerns. Let me show my video then explain:


When I first started going to Corriganville I always came away unimpressed. This was part of the reason I was not too enthusiastic about sharing pictures of what I had found here. Not much is left of the park which was used for filming movies, but also a public tourist attraction for live western shows. It was only in a few recent visits that I really started to take a liking to the place. I will explain more on this when I come back to this series in later blogs.

In this blog, I wanted to focus on what they used to refer to as Silvertown. It was the town set that has been used to play Dodge City, Tombstone, Lone Ranger towns, etc. I know there is so much I could use for this location, but I picked a Have Gun, Will Travel episode called "The Protege" as my example of what they did here.

I did a cheap narrative with some video clips in the video so I am going to skip that and just hit a few highlights. Paladin and the Protege ride into town by the tree in the background.
There is a rock formation in the background that I like to think of as the side face of a gorilla. I did not match up the picture with the one above because that high bushy tree is so big it covers the rock formation. I am much further back and to the left of the above.
Further back this time. You can now match up the background with the episode picture. The set pieces/buildings would have been on the sides.

Here is what I was after. From the above I made about a 100° left turn. The key is trying to find that rock that looks like a line dividing it in two.
This is pretty close. I took a few more steps to the right because the tree was blocking the way of the line in the rock. If you compare pictures you should be able to match up the rocks. The concrete appears to be the foundation to what is the saloon in the episode. Ironically, as I stated in the video, the name of the saloon in the episode was "The Right Angle Saloon" and I was trying to get the right angle here.
You can watch the video for this, but there are two gunfights that take place here. The one below is the one the protege does. Then Paladin has the final gunfight at the end of the episode here in the exact same location.
This is really close, but I can't say for certain. The entrance to the saloon would have been near the concrete for sure.
Give yourself bonus points if you saw the water tank in the video.