Monday, March 22. 2010

A bright, sunny day and a trip to Old Tucson Studios. For those of us who enjoy John Wayne and Western movies it was a great visit. Many movies have been made at OTS.

A guided tour of the studio was first on our agenda. Our tour guide was actually an actor. He said in one movie he was dunked into the water trough and out came Dean Martin. After the tour we wandered around for a short time. Then . . .

we were witness to a gun fight in front of the Hotel Del Toro. Gambler rushed out of the saloon and was shot in the back for cheating at cards, note the dead man in front of the Apothecary, then the killer got into a fist fight with his fellow outlaw. There would have been another shooting at that time but for the entry of "Billy the Kid". For a few minutes all was peaceful then Billy and the killer shot and killed the fellow outlaw.

Later we went to the Saloon and watched a Tribute to John Wayne. Also in the Saloon we were treated to a show by the Can Can Girls, and they were good.

Episodes of Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Little House on the Prairie, just to name a few, were shot here. John Wayne movies, 1959 Rio Bravo, 1963 McLintock, 1967 El Dorado and 1971 Rio Lobo were filmed here. Any Little House on the Prairie fans will note the Olsen's Mercantile. The dressed are ones worn by Mrs. Olsen, Caroline and Laura and her sister. I even got the Old Tucson Studios Marshall to pose for a picture.

They began making movies here in the early 1930's. In 1995 the north end of the studio burned, including with the sound stage which has really set them back. A couple of developers owned the Studio at that time, they collected $13,000,000. Pocketed $10M and put $3M back into rebuilding, but there isn't a sound studio now, so, although there are still movies being filmed there, it is not like the prefire days. Also, New Mexico has lured a lot of the film making to their State as the State will pay to complete the film if it goes over budget. Thus Canada and OTS has lost a lot of their film industry. Arizona does have some good tax incentives but can't touch New Mexico. The Studio is For Sale if any of you are interested. Here are some pictures we took of our day.

Oh, and the coyote, it is about the only wildlife we have seen this winter, and we saw him walking across the parking lot as we were leaving.

Hope you all enjoyed our tour of the Old Tucson Studios.

We left OTS around 3:30, went to MacDonald's for ice cream and then to Walmart looking for a filter for Doug's bus. Couldn't get one there so drove a couple of miles to Checker where he was lucky enough to find one. From there it was back to RV and supper. After supper Gord and Doug hit the internet and the maps to plan the next leg of our trip.