Ramona Locations

[Rodney]

Since Ramona (1928) just appeared on Amazon Prime, I thought I'd post this.

This is a John-Bengston-style slideshow, with pictures from my photo safari of Ramona locations in Zion National Park from 2015. I blend back and forth between frame grabs from the film, and the modern photographs.

Embedding video codes doesn't seem to work, so follow this link.

[silentfilm]

Facebook adds extra parameters to the URL that Nitrateville does not understand.

[Rodney]

Thanks!

[bobfells]

Very impressive, Rodney. The Then/Now photos help the viewer connect to the locations.

Bob

[missdupont]

They also filmed at Camulos, because Los Angeles and local papers report on them there.

[Rodney]

They also filmed at Camulos, because Los Angeles and local papers report on them there.

For the 1928 Ramona? I know the Pickford/Griffith Ramona was filmed at Camulos. Not sure what the scenes in the 1928 film would be that were filmed there. I'd be interested to hear more.

[missdupont]

Sorry, yes the Pickford film. The 1928 Ramona also shot on what is now the Raleigh lot, the building is still there.

[Rodney]

Sorry, yes the Pickford film. The 1928 Ramona also shot on what is now the Raleigh lot, the building is still there.

The Pickford film is charming and well acted, as you would expect, though the plot is even more abbreviated. And of course Rancho Camulos is not really Ramona's (fictitious) home, but the ranch that Helen Hunt Jackson had visited and used as a basis for her fictional rancho, which she placed elsewhere. That didn't stop tourists from flocking there to see where Ramona had lived and visit "her" room. (Echoes of people visiting "Juliet's balcony" in Florence.)

So by 1910, it was natural for Griffith to think of Camulos as the "location" for the story.

I did appreciate that in the 1910 film Alessandro is a musician: in the book, he was highly cultured and played the violin beautifully (I think because the author wanted to make sure her readers knew that he'd been brought low because of racism, not any character flaw or innate "savagery").

In the surviving pages of Hugo Riesenfeld's score for the 1928 film, there's music for a scene where Alessandro plays the violin, but it was clearly cut from the film some time after the scoring was done but before wide distribution (there's a big slash drawn through the page, cutting it from the score).

I also have a 16-page "Picture Show Souvenir of Ramona" booklet that has stills from a couple of other scenes that were cut from the film as it survives today.