When last seen here on Up and Down These Mean Streets, Hollywood tour guide Charlie Morfin supplied us with a shot of the Dashiell Hammett Street sign when they got the spelling wrong — white hot news back in 2011, kicked off a little series of posts.
Plus he did some mugging in Burritt alley — not that kind of mugging, this kind of mugging.
And I always liked that shot of me and Charlie hoofing up Elwood alley.
Now it turns out he’s writing books, too. I glanced at the title Location Filming in the Alabama Hills and my first thought was, why the hell would some guy like Charlie — with a toehold in Hollywood — head off to Alabama?
A bit of attention paid to the blurb, though, tipped off that that’s the name of some hills outside LA where tons of movies have been shot. Looking at the rocks on the cover, I’m betting that the 1957 Randolph Scott/Budd Boetticher oater The Tall T was shot there — great little movie, with Richard Boone, and Henry Silva chewing up the Alabama Hills scenery as a creepy psycho killer owlhoot. If they shot that one someplace else, Silva chewed up that scenery, too — came close to stealing the film with his performance.
For all you film fans — especially the ones who like to track down the shooting locales.
