Where Was Tall in the Saddle Filmed?

Tall in the Saddle was filmed in two states. RKO Radio Pictures shot the 1944 John Wayne Western in California, at its movie ranch in Encino and on location around Agoura and Lake Sherwood, and in Sedona, Arizona, where the company worked on Schnebly Hill and across what is now West Sedona.

Production ran from mid-April to mid-June 1944, and the film opened on October 17, 1944. The Sedona scenes are the part you can still go and see. They also mattered to the town, because the Sedona historian Janeen Trevillyan marks this film as the point when repeat business from movie crews began.

This page goes through each location, what the records say about it, and how to visit what is left. For the rest of the town’s Westerns, start with the movies filmed in Sedona.

Where each part of the film was shot

If you looked this up and found only California, that is because the two best-known film references stop there. The American Film Institute catalog notes that some scenes were filmed at the RKO Ranch in Encino, and Turner Classic Movies adds Agoura and Lake Sherwood. Neither page mentions Sedona.

Sedona’s place in the story comes from the people who have studied the town’s film history. Joe McNeill, author of Arizona’s Little Hollywood, describes the movie as partly shot on location in Sedona. The Sedona Historical Society’s marker in Uptown says Wayne came to Sedona to film it. Janeen Trevillyan, a historian with the society and the Sedona Heritage Museum, says Wayne came to Sedona to make it in 1944, and a production still shows the Sedona skyline behind the riders.

The California locations

The RKO Encino Ranch was the studio’s 89-acre backlot in the San Fernando Valley. It had a complete Western town with intersecting streets and a New York street, and other sets went up as films needed them, including the Bedford Falls work for It’s a Wonderful Life two years after Tall in the Saddle.

The ranch sat roughly between Louise Avenue and Balboa Boulevard, from Burbank Boulevard up to Oxnard Street. RKO sold the land in 1954, and the sets were bulldozed for the growing neighborhoods around it. You can drive those streets, but there is nothing from the film left to find.

Agoura and Lake Sherwood are in the hills west of the Valley, in country that studios used often in those years. We have not found a record that ties a particular scene from this film to a particular spot in either place, so we leave it there.

The runaway stagecoach on Schnebly Hill

Wayne’s character, a cowboy known only as Rocklin, enters the film by hitching a ride at a stage stop, with George “Gabby” Hayes up top as the driver, Dave. An early scene turns on a runaway stagecoach, and one writer who toured Sedona’s movie locations places that ride on Schnebly Hill Road.

Once you have seen the road, you will understand why a director would want it. Schnebly Hill climbs out of the red rock bowl east of town on bare stone and loose rock, and the view opens up on every turn.

You can still go. The first stretch from State Route 179 is fine for most cars, and past that a high-clearance vehicle is the right tool, so many visitors let a guide do the driving on a Sedona jeep tour. Our Schnebly Hill Road guide covers the turnouts and viewpoints, and the film locations driving tour shows which other movies worked up there.

The ranch house set

A landmark request filed with the City of Sedona says that a movie-set ranch house seen in Tall in the Saddle first stood on Schnebly Hill, and that it was moved in the 1950s to the Back O’ Beyond area. The city’s project page listed the request as under review, and we have not seen a final decision.

The house is a private home, so there is nothing to tour and no reason to go looking for it. Back O’ Beyond Road is still worth knowing as the way to the Cathedral Rock trailhead, and it is a nice thing to know on the drive in that a piece of John Wayne’s film history ended up in the neighborhood.

The posse in West Sedona

A still from the film shows a posse riding across what is now West Sedona, near the Foothills South neighborhood, with Capitol Butte, Sugarloaf and Coffee Pot Rock in the background. In 1944 this was open range. Today it is the part of town with the grocery stores, the restaurants and the homes, and those three formations stand exactly where the camera found them.

Capitol Butte, also known as Thunder Mountain, is the big rounded dome. Coffee Pot Rock is the formation with the spout, to its right as you look north from town. Sugarloaf is the low red mound at their feet. Learn those shapes and you will know what to look for on screen.

Two easy ways to line up the view:

• Sugarloaf Loop Trail. Start at the Teacup Trailhead on Buena Vista Drive in West Sedona. The loop runs just under 2 miles, with Capitol Butte and Coffee Pot Rock in front of you almost from the start and a close look at Coffee Pot Rock later on. A short spur of less than a quarter mile climbs rock steps to the top of Sugarloaf.
• The Airport Mesa overlook. The scenic outlook on Airport Mesa looks straight across West Sedona to Capitol Butte and Coffee Pot Rock. It is the view at the top of this page, and it is at its best in the last hour of light. Our sunset spots guide has the details on going up for the evening.

Why this film changed things for Sedona

Movies had been made around Sedona since 1923. Trevillyan says 1944 is when everything changed, the year the town began to get repeat business and draw more movie crews.

The man in the middle was Oscar Giles, a Flagstaff outfitter whose company, Anderson Boarding and Supply, had grown from serving cattle outfits to feeding and supplying film crews. Wayne met Giles, and the two struck a deal. If Wayne would bring his crew to Sedona, Giles would build the town’s first motel. Until then, a crew working here lived in tents or drove the gravel switchbacks down from Flagstaff every day.

The film Wayne brought was Angel and the Badman, the first picture he ever produced. Giles built the Sedona Lodge to match the schedule, sized for 300 people and two film crews at once, on the spot where the Arabella Hotel stands today. The studio put up a sound stage next door in case of bad weather, and a Western town set went up on Grasshopper Flat, the old name for West Sedona. That set went on to appear in many more Westerns through the 1950s. You can read how it all played out in our Sedona history guide.

The people who made Tall in the Saddle

Edwin L. Marin directed for RKO, working from a novel by Gordon Ray Young that The Saturday Evening Post had serialized in 1942. Turner Classic Movies credits Wayne himself with finding the story and helping develop the script with actor Paul Fix, his former acting coach, who also plays a part in the film. It was the second picture in Wayne’s six-film deal with RKO.

The story is a classic setup. A quiet cowboy rides into an Arizona town to take a job, finds that the rancher who hired him has been murdered, and starts to see that the young woman who inherited the ranch is being manipulated by her aunt and a scheming judge. Audrey Long plays the heiress Clara Cardell, Ella Raines plays the rival rancher Arly Harolday, and Ward Bond plays Judge Garvey.

RKO’s early promotion announced Maureen O’Hara as Wayne’s co-star, and by the time cameras rolled, Raines had the part. Wayne and O’Hara would not be paired until Rio Grande in 1950.

A day on the trail of the film

You can do all of this from West Sedona without rushing.

1. Early morning: Sugarloaf Loop. Allow about an hour, and bring the shapes above to mind while you walk.
2. Late morning: the Uptown marker. The Sedona Historical Society’s marker, John Wayne and His Sedona Connection, was recorded on the wall at The Shops at Hyatt Piñon, 101 N Hwy 89A. It tells the Giles story in a paragraph, and several other town history markers are close by.
3. Midday: Sedona Heritage Museum. The museum at 735 Jordan Road is open daily from 11 am to 3 pm, at $10 for adults and free for children under 13 (928-282-7038). Ask for the Telegraph Office.
4. Afternoon: Schnebly Hill. Book a jeep, or drive the first stretch and turn back where the road gets rough.
5. Sunset: Airport Mesa. Finish with the same skyline the posse rode under.

The Telegraph Office is the one movie building you can walk right up to. It began as a railroad depot in Winona, northeast of here, more than a century ago, and it came to Sedona to be part of the Western town built for Angel and the Badman. It comes from the film that followed Tall in the Saddle, and it is the best way to touch the story that this movie started.

How to watch it before you come

Movies Anywhere lists the film, and it turns up on Turner Classic Movies. Check both, since streaming rights move around. It runs about 87 minutes.

Watch the first reel for the stage and the rocks behind it. Then watch for the posse sequences and try to catch that big rounded dome. If you want to make a project of it, our list of Westerns to watch before a Sedona trip picks up where this one leaves off.