The big celebration planned for the 20th edition of the Lone Pine Film Festival contains a potpourri of films made in the area. Some are rare, and some very rare movies and serials, seldom seen today. Some are the big classic pictures that many film fans love to see again and again, this time on the big screen after so many years of being reduced to the silver screen limitations.

For most cinephiles the centerpiece will be the showing of the Daredevils of the West serial in all 12 chapters Saturday afternoon. Shown once last year to a select group of one hundred serial aficionados, this will be the first general audience showing at a film festival. The serial will be shown on a first come-first serve basis at the Lone Pine Auditorium in two blocks: the first six chapters with a break and screening of another film, and the last six chapters. Daredevils has been known as one of the best action serials and it was filmed on location here in the Alabama Hills, almost in its entirety. There is limited seating so be there in line for this rare treat.

The “Intermission film for this showing will be the feature version of the Lone Ranger Serial made in 1938 here in Lone Pine. It was during this period that director William Witney was experimenting with his new idea of choreographing fight scenes. He got the idea while visiting a friend on a Busby Berkeley set, watching this master choreograph and rehearse a dance number. The feature version is called Hi Yo Silver and it is a thrill to watch the action in this film. Director Quentin Tarantino credits Witney for making the modern action film possible because of his fight staging innovation.

Three other rare films to be screened during the weekend are silent films made in the 1920’s. The first film known to have filmed here is The Round Up, which filmed in Lone Pine starting in early January 1920. It was the first feature film made by Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle. At the time he was a comedy super star. In less than two years he would be swept up in a scandal that would destroy his career even though after three trials he was finally found not guilty. The film based on a novel and popular play tells the story of fat lonely sheriff and is very effective. Wallace Beery plays the villain in despicable manner. The story is actually complex and well edited. The film was found in the Library of Congress vaults and Jim Rogers underwrote the restoration and product ion of the print now held at Paramount.

Musician Bill Schuck of Bishop has written a score for the screening and he will be accompanying the projection live. He also will be playing for the other two films: Tom Mix in Riders of the Purple Sage (1925) and Buck Jones in The Flying Horsemen. The second film has many scenes shot in and around Bishop during what appears to be spring run-off. The Mix film worked in the Alabamas during November and December of 1924 and was the film the star was making when he sent his orchestra up to the Alabama Gates to entertain the ranchers who took over the L.A. Aqueduct in protest of Los Angeles land policies.

Two very enjoyable B westerns of the 1930’s will also be on the schedule during the weekend. They are Courageous Avenger starring Johnny Mack Brown and Cowboy Holiday with Big Boy Guinn Williams. Both films serve as excellent models for the B western genre, a kind of hour long, action based film that made filming in Lone Pine so popular. They were usually engaging stories pitting bad men against good men against the gorgeous backgrounds of the Alabama Hills and the Eastern Sierra. What they lacked in budget and sophistication, they made up for with action segments and the magnificent locations.

One early sound film is Hell-Fire Austin with Ken Maynard. Maynard was known as “a cowboy who sings” rather than “a singing cowboy.” He had the honor of being the first one to make a sound western, so he was the first cowboy toy sing on film. That film, The Wagon Master now lost, also filmed in Lone Pine. Hell-Fire Austin is a classic Maynard B western with much action in the Alabama Hills. A Gene Autry film Down Mexico Way has a sequence where a car is rolled in the Alabamas, and, of course, lots of music with the most famous of singing cowboys, and the western selection is rounded out with the first Hopalong Cassidy film starring William Boyd Hopalong Cassidy Enters.

A film that was bumped last year from the schedule because of inclement weather will definitely be shown this year. That is Cattle Empire with Joel McCrea and Phyllis Coates, who was on hand last year. Other films included in the three-day schedule are ones starring Clint Eastwood, Robert Taylor and Richard Widmark and Randolph Scott. Several of these are cinemascope and a special screen will be used to accommodate the wide screen that fully captures the Lone Pine locations.

All told, the film schedule at this years Lone Pine Film Festival had something for every film taste and some rarities that may not be found on the big screen any time soon. The Festival is October 9-11, 2009. Additional information can be gotten by calling 876-9103.