Filming locales! Yes! Half the Westerns ever made (not to mention many other dramas set in modern times) have a formation called "The Mormon Rocks" in them. Even Star Trek where Kirk fought the guy with the rubber lizard head. They are a group of sandstone rocks that slant at about a 45 degree angle. The are located at the top of Cajon Pass just off 395 heading out of San Bernardino into the high desert. Once you identify this group you will be seeing them forever. If you turn left first chance you get after you reach the desert you will be headed toward Antelope Valley. This is on the back side of the San Gabriel Mountains. That's the ones you see during the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl Football Game. The were the backdrop for The Outlaw Jose Wales and many other Westerns. You will often see the San Gabriels and Mormon Rocks in the same flick. It doesn't cost a whole lot nor take too long to move your equipment 15 or 20 miles down the road.

If you continue up 395 you will come to the (once little) town of Victorville. Just over the Mojave River (yes there is a river that runs through part of the Mojave Desert) you come to Apple Valley Where Roy Rogers lived. Many of his movies were filmed in this location as well as some of Gene Autry's. However a greater number of those B movies were filmed in studio back lots in the Hollywood Hills, Thousand Oaks, Semi Valley and the like.

The Grand Tetons was the backdrop for Shane and many other movies. Jackson Hole WY just south of the Grand Tetons Nat'l Park Has also seen many films produced. "Any Which Way But Loose" ends up here.

John Huston had a financial partner in Walter Boone and together they formed the HB Cattle Ranch located just west of California Hot Springs in the Sierra Nevada foothills. It was a 70 section (square miles) working cattle ranch (and is to this day) and Huston ( he was the grizzled old prospector in Treasure of the Sierra Madre) produced at least two early Westerns on this beautiful ranch. I can't remember their titles just off hand, sorry.

John Wayne had a ranch near Casa Grande AZ and I believe that it served as an occasional backdrop for some of his movies. I'll have to check with my "known source" on that one as her uncle was Wayne's foreman on that ranch.