"Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming's legendary dude ranch setPeaceful, photogenic Grand Teton National Park lures fans of 'Shane,' the 1953 homesteader's tale, which was filmed here. Signs of the western can still be seen.
By James Dannenberg, Special to The Los Angeles Times 12:00 AM PDT, August 06, 2006 The Grand Tetons held sway over me for 20 years — before I set ever eyes on them.
The breathtaking backdrop for a mythic American landscape has been etched on my consciousness since, as a 10-year-old, I sat mesmerized by a Saturday matinee showing of "Shane," an archetypal little-guy-versus-bully story.
And the Jackson Hole, Wyo., landscape, personified by the overpowering Tetons, is as essential a character as any in the 1953 film. The homesteading Starretts (Jean Arthur, Van Heflin and Brandon de Wilde as Joey), helped by the loner Shane (Alan Ladd), had to battle that formidable country as desperately as they did the cattlemen, the Rykers and their gunman Jack Wilson (Jack Palance). So beautiful but so harsh, it is the sort of West that Wallace Stegner once described as "the native home of hope."
Teton Range and Jackson Hole, just south of Yellowstone in Wyoming's northwest corner, haven't changed much from the 1880s, when the story of "Shane" took place. Grand Teton National Park was designated in 1929 and expanded in 1950, in part through a donation of 35,000 acres from the Rockefeller family. It is dominated by the Teton Range, which has a dozen peaks more than 12,000 feet high, and the broad valley known as Jackson Hole.
Whenever I've visited Grand Teton, which has been as often as possible, I've tried to guess where "Shane" was filmed, but the valley is broad, and nobody I asked — rangers or locals — really knew.
Last August I decided to find out...."
Full article at the
Los Angeles Times
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