High Chaparral Old Tucson Movie Studios

by Marilyn Smith

Buy the Original Painting

Price

$750

Dimensions

18.000 x 12.000 inches

Title

High Chaparral Old Tucson Movie Studios

Artist

Marilyn Smith

Medium

Painting - Watercolor

Description

This watercolor scene from Old Tucson, movie studios, before it burned in 1995, is the movie set and ranch used in the filming of the TV series "The High Chaparral". Another popular painting of mine titled "Old Tucson" can be found in my Collections of "Southwest and Western Art" and "Watercolor Art". It was painted from a photo I took at Old Tucson before the 1995 fire. The Mission church still has its' original bell towers which no longer appear in current times.
The studios are located west of Tucson, AZ beside the Tucson Mountains and the Saguaro National Park.
Old Tucson Studios was originally built in 1938 by Columbia Pictures
on a Pima County-owned site as a replica of 1860s Tucson
for the movie Arizona, starring William Holden and Jean Arthur.
Workers built more than 50 buildings in 40 days.
Many of those structures are still standing. Rebuilding after the fire in 1995 has occurred over the years.
After Arizona completed filming, the location lay dormant for several years, until the filming of The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), starring Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman. Other early movies filmed on this set included The Last Round-Up (1947) with Gene Autry and Winchester '73 (1950) with James Stewart and The Last Outpost with Ronald Reagan. The 1950s saw the filming of Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold (1958), and Cimarron (1959) among others.
The park grew building by building with each movie filmed on its dusty streets. John Wayne starred in four movies at Old Tucson Studios. Rio Bravo (1959) added a saloon, bank building and doctor's office; McLintock! (1963) added the McLintock Hotel; El Dorado (1966) brought a renovation of the storefronts on Front Street; and with Rio Lobo (1970) came a cantina, a granite-lined creek, a jail and a ranch house.
In 1968, a 13,000 square foot (1,208 square meter) soundstage was built to give Old Tucson Studios greater movie-making versatility. The first film to use the soundstage was Young Billy Young (1968), starring Robert Mitchum and Angie Dickinson.
The park also began adding tours, rides and shows for the entertainment of visitors, most notably gunfights staged in the "streets" by stunt performers.
Old Tucson served as an ideal location for shooting scenes for TV series like NBC's The High Chaparral (1966-1971) where the ranch house survived the 1995 fire: Little House on the Prairie, and later Father Murphy, featuring Merlin Olsen and "Petrocelli". Three Amigos was a popular comedy shot there in the 80s, utilizing the church set. From 1989 to 1992 the show The Young Riders filmed here and at the Mescal sister site. The main street appears prominently in 1990s westerns such as Tombstone.
After years of difficulties, such as closing during the Covid-19 pandemic, the park is reopening in 2022.

Uploaded

July 7th, 2022

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