Buffalo Bayou An Echo of Houston's
Wilderness
Beginnings
by Louis F. Aulbach Hollywood Comes to
Houston!
That a Hollywood film production company would use
Houston as a location for
filming a motion picture is not very surprising. That a film crew
arrived
here in 1924 is a lot more interesting!
In those early days of the motion picture industry, Adolph Zukor and
Jesse
Lasky, producers for Paramount Pictures, were looking for a large herd
of
longhorn cattle to provide the background scenes for their upcoming
epic tale
of the first Texas cattle drive to Abilene, Kansas after the Civil War.
California
just did not have that many longhorns. But, Texas did.
Bassett Blakely, a Fort Bend County rancher, was contacted, and, in
August,
1924, director Irvin Willat brought his movie crews and equipment to
Houston
for the filming of the silent movie version of Emerson Hough's novel
'North
of 36'.
The Blakely Ranch, west of Houston, became the site for this movie
production.
Although they originally were only planning to shoot cattle herding
scenes
here, Willat was so impressed with the locale and the warm southern
hospitality
that he decided to shoot the whole film on the Texas location.
Blakely brought together 3,000 head of longhorn cattle from his herd
and the
herds of his neighbors, who included Emil Marks of the LH7 Ranch.
Scenes of
cattle ranching were staged at the ranch and on the vast and open
prairie
that we now call the Katy Prairie. In one spectacular scene, a small
lake
on the ranch was used to simulate the dangerous crossing of the Red
River
by the large herd.
The final product was 'North of 36', a silent, black and white cowboy
movie
that starred Jack Holt, Ernest Torrence, Lois Wilson, and Noah Beery,
Sr.
This film followed the huge success of 'Covered Wagon' that also
starred Lois
Wilson. Wilson, who began her career after winning an Alabama beauty
contest
sponsored by Universal Pictures, was an accomplished amateur
photographer.
She recorded the cattle drive in 'North of 36' in full detail. Much of
the
film is devoted to her footage of the real-life cattle drive. It is
reported
that this was one of the 'last major cattle drive' in the United
States, but,
in reality, it was staged by the ranch hands of the Blakely Ranch on
the
open prairie south of Katy.
Although 'North of 36' was a lackluster movie, the themes woven in the
story
are so compelling that the film was remade in 1931 as 'The Conquering
Horde'.
Again, in 1938, a remake starring Randolph Scott was called 'The
Texans.'
Both remakes relied upon the stock footage and the action highlights of
the
original film, including the spectacular panoramas of the cattle drive.
'North
of 36' is a fitting tribute to the talent, as well as the beauty of
Lois Wilson,
who at age 26, filmed invaluable footage of the cattle drive that was
better
than the scenes the professional cinematographer and crew were able to
capture
while recording the event.
In 1937, Bassett Blakely sold his ranch to William M. Wheless, Jr.
Wheless
then brought in four of his friends as partners in the operation. The
joint
venture of these five ('cinco' in Spanish) partners became the Cinco
Ranch.
Subsequently, developers purchased the Cinco Ranch in 1984, and the
first
homes were built in 1991.
The vintage silent film and the local history associated with its
filming
have been resurrected in the Fall of 2002 for promotional purposes for
the
new Fort Bend County branch library in the Cinco Ranch subdivision.
All material printed on this
page
and this web site is copyrighted. All rights reserved.
Copyright by Louis F. Aulbach,
2002
