"40 Acres"
The Lost Studio Backlot of Movie & Television Fame
a RetroWeb Studio Backlots website
The Later RKO Years
1940-1958
Overhead View of RKO "40 Acre Ranch" - July 20, 1953
(photo courtesy Walter O'Connor and Joseph Musso, w/ thanks also to Jerry Krumm)
Aerial View RKO Studios and 40 Acres Backlot - 1946 (scan courtesy Bison Archives) |
Tarzan Jungle (f.g.) and RKO-Pathe Studios (b.g.) - circa 1944 (photo courtesy Walter O'Connor and Joseph Musso) RKO "40 Acres" Backlot in Culver City, CA, circa 1944, showing the Tarzan Jungle in the foreground and the RKO-Pathe Studios with its water tower in the background. |
Arab Village Dressed for "China Sky" (1945) (photo courtesy Walter O'Connor and Joseph Musso) Part of the original Jerusalem city for Cecil B. DeMille's King of Kings (1927), this set was also featured (redressed) as an Arab village in David Selznick's Garden of Allah (1936), and continued over the years to be used as a locale in a number of films and television series. In this photograph, the set is dressed for the 1945 RKO Radio Pictures film "China Sky," directed by Ray Enright, and starring Randolph Scott, Ruth Warwick, Ellen Drew and Anthony Quinn. |
Tarzan Jungle and Baldwin Hills (photo courtesy Walter O'Connor and Joseph Musso) RKO Tarzan Jungle on the RKO "40 Acres" Backlot in Culver City, CA., with the Baldwin Hills in the background. Photographed in October 1951. |
Tarzan Jungle and Treehouse (photo courtesy Walter O'Connor and Joseph Musso) RKO Tarzan Jungle on the RKO "40 Acres" Backlot in Culver City, CA., showing a portion of the Tarzan tree house. Photographed in October 1951. |
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Bombed-out European town set, from Attack! (1956) |
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scenes from "The Raid" (1954)
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40 Acres main town sets dressed for (photo courtesy Bison Archives) |
view west from bell tower during filming of (photo courtesy Bison Archives) |
church and priest's house from "The Miracle of the Bells" - photographed November 21, 1950 (photo courtesy Bison Archives) |
lower south side "barracks" sets and Baldwin Hills - photographed March 3, 1954 (photo courtesy Bison Archives) The "barracks" sets on the lower south side of the 40 Acres backlot pre-dated "Gone With The Wind," and are present in the 1938 aerial view. A railroad track and coal cars were added for the area's appearance as part of "Coal Town" in "The Miracle of the Bells" (1948). |
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scenes from "The Miracle of the Bells" (1948)
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west end of "Coal Town" main street, with GWTW depot dressed as "Watson Coal Co.," and with upper, painted flats as distant mining facilities |
church and priest's house, constructed for the film |
vintage "barracks" area sets redressed as coal mining area |
this "Coal Town" facade would twelve years later become the "Mayberry" courthouse in "The Andy Griffith Show" |
pan sequence from "barracks" area to church |
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lower south side "barracks" and "docks" sets - photographed (photo courtesy Bison Archives) These sets, which pre-dated "Gone With The Wind," appeared as a Russian village in the 1957 John Wayne film "Jet Pilot." The facade in the distance also made several appearances in the TV series "The Untouchables." |
lower south side "barracks" sets - photographed (photo courtesy Bison Archives) this view from the "barracks" area looking northeast includes the church and priest's house sets from "The Miracle of the Bells" (1948). Also, in the distance can be seen a portion of the reform school set from "The Godless Girl" (1929). |
lower south side "docks" sets - photographed (photo courtesy Bison Archives) immediately east of the "barracks" were these facades, labelled on the 1940 plot plan as the "docks" sets. as with the barracks sets, these facades pre-dated "Gone With The Wind." |
main town sets including the "Traveler's Hotel" from "The Long Night"- November 21, 1950 (photo courtesy Bison Archives) the facade at the left backed up to the "docks" sets seen in the previous photo, and faced in the opposite direction (north). The double-porched "Traveler's Hotel" faced east, toward the wooden church set. |
main town sets - view west - 1955 (photo courtesy Bison Archives) |
"Gone With The Wind" Atlanta depot set photographed in 1955 (photo courtesy Bison Archives) |
Partial View of 40 Acres Backlot - 1955 (scan courtesy Bison Archives) This view features the street set and building facades built in the 1930's for Gone With The Wind, with a few changes and additions since that time, and later used in television's The Andy Griffith Show, The Adventures of Superman, Batman, Star Trek, Mission: Impossible, The Green Hornet and a variety of other television series and films. Also visible in this photograph at the east end of 40 Acres (upper portion of photo) is the large reform school set built for the 1929 silent film "The Godless Girl," and a bombed-out European town set which appeared in the films "The Story of G.I. Joe" (1945), "Tripoli" (1950) and "Attack!" (1956). |
Explorable 1956 Map of 40 Acres
Click here for an explorable overhead view of 40 Acres in 1956,
linked to over twenty photographs and scenes from this period of the backlot's history.
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scenes from "Verboten!" (1959)
Directed and produced by Samuel Fuller, "Verboten!" was the last RKO Radio Pictures film. The film starred James Best as an American soldier living in Germany during post-WW II construction, and the story centers on the soldier's taboo nature with a German woman who eventually becomes his wife. |
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Forty Acres Later RKO Years Filmography
known and possible productions which used the backlot from 1939-1959 (grey=possible, light blue=reliably documented, white=confirmed) |
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Film
Gone With the Wind (1939) Intermezzo (1939) Made for Each Other (1939) The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) Little Men (1940) Rebecca (1940) Little Abner (1940) Citizen Kane (1941) The Magnificient Ambersons (1942) The Moon and Sixpence (1942) So This is Washington (Lum & Abner) (1943) Two Weeks to Live (Lum & Abner) (1943) Tarzan Triumphs (1943) Tarzan's Desert Mystery (1943) Since You Went Away (1944) Spellbound (1945) Story of GI Joe (1945) China Sky (1945) Tarzan and the Amazons (1945) Duel in the Sun (1946) The Devil & Daniel Webster (1946) Tarzan and the Leopard Woman (1946) The Stranger (1946) Tarzan and the Huntress (1947) The Long Night (1947) (despite a publicity still shot at 40A, the backlot does not appear in the film) The Miracle of the Bells (1948) Three Musketeers (1948) The Velvet Touch (1948) Tarzan and the Mermaids (1948) She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) Tarzan's Magic Fountain (1949) The Big Steal (1949) The Set-Up (1949) Mighty Joe Young (1949) Tarzan and the Slave Girl (1950) The Great Rupert (1950) Tripoli (1950) Where Danger Lives (1950) His Kind of Woman (1951) Flying Leathernecks (1951) Two Tickets to Broadway (1951) Eight Iron Men (1952) Macau (1952) One Minute to Zero (1952) Tarzan's Savage Fury (1952) Viva Zapata (1952) The Big Sky (1952) Tarzan and the She-Devil (1953) A Star is Born (1954) She Couldn't Say No (1954) The Raid (1954) Escape to Burma (1955) Night of the Hunter (1955) Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) Attack! (1956) Death of a Scoundrel (1956) Screaming Eagles (1956) The Searchers (1956) The Conqueror (1956) Jet Pilot (1957, filmed 1951) Farewell to Arms (1957) The Girl Most Likely (1957) Verboten! (1959, post-RKO) Blood and Steel (1959, post-RKO) Television The Adventures of Superman (TV) (1952, first season only) Adventures of Jim Bowie (TV) (1956) |
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