After seeing the HBO doc
All Or Nothing At All, TSG has been on a Sinatra binge, which includes watching some pretty mediocre movies. One such flick is
Sergeants 3, Frank's big-budget western imitation of
Gunga Din. It's as good a movie as you'd expect from Frank Dino Sammy Peter and Joey. It isn't one of John Sturges best efforts, but he did as well as he could considering the circumstances. Modern viewers might find the cultural stereotypes somewhat offensive but it's no worse than other movies of the time.
Anywho, the thing that grabbed TSG right from the opening scenes was a overwhelming sense of
déjà vu.
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| Sgts 3 screenshot 1 |
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| Sgts 3 Screenshot 2 |
A quick google or two revealed why the scenery looked so familiar. The movie was filmed in various places near Kanab, including the Paria ghost town/movie set area and Bryce Canyon--both visited by TSG in our forays in Utah's Kane County. We camped out on the edge of the old set back in '96, which was lucky because the buildings were dismantled just a few years later. The locations in screenshots don't match up exactly with the TSG archival images, but you get the idea...
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| Birds-eye view of TSG 1996 campsite |
Bryce Canyon--Sinatra, Martin and Lawford searching for the Ghost Dancer's cave:
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| Sgts 3 screenshot 3 |
TSG archival image: view overlooking the trail:
2 comments:
Life imitating art imitating life? Something like that.
Your fancies when it comes to choice camping sites often strike me as, oh, austere? As long as you're happy . . .
That last TSG image, overlooking the trail, is utterly fascinating. Just all kinds of wonderful stuff all mixed up together. Some of those triangular (sort of) white shapes in the rocks look, more or less, like snow-covered trees mixed in amongst everything else.
It's been awhile since I've really been camping--I blame it on affluence, digital cameras and having a laptop. Those "austere" campsites were fantastic for a lot of reasons, not least of which were fantastic views and (usually) the absence of obnoxious neighbors. (The flip side of that is when you have the whole campground to yourself you can be as obnoxious as you want!)
The last image overlooking the trails at Bryce--those pathways that wander amongst the hoodoos are just wonderful. I've never seen a roadrunner or an Acme-equipped coyote on my hikes there, but they certainly wouldn't be out of place.
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