Lets go back in time to an earlier era in Hollywood, 1918 to be exact. These were the days before computer aided special effects, color cameras and sound was just being thought of being added to the then silent movies. In 1918 Thomas Ince purchased property from Henry Culver which was to become the Culver Studios. The Ince Studios were in business from 1919 to 1924. Ince was killed in a questionable death on William Randolph Hearst's Yacht and in 1925, Cecil B. DeMille acquired Ince's holdings. To film his "King of Kings" a silent movie epic, DeMille leased 28 1/2 acres of land behind and to the left of the studio. This property became known as the Forty Acres backlot. On this property, DeMille built the biblical city of Jerusalem. In 1928, RKO was created and took over the ownership of the Culver City property. For the movie "The Bird of Paradise", they built a jungle and native village. This jungle became the nucleus of the future Tarzan jungle bordered by Ballona Creek, it was a natural spot for the Arab Village and jungle scenes. The native village and the Jerusalem gates can also be see in the movie "King Kong".
RKO, which operated the studio from 1928 to 1935, lived on the edge of going under with every movie they produced. If if were not for the famous gorilla King Kong, they would have been insolvent. IN 1936 RKO decided to lease the Culver Studio location to David O Selznick for his use. Selznick used the 40 Acres in his productions and it can be seen in The Garden of Allah (36) - using the old Jerusalem sets and in 1937 they used the backlot for the filming of Tom Sawyer.
In 1938 the backlot went through a radical transformation. Selznick was planning
on producing now one of the greatest films ever made " Gone With The
Wind" but what to do with the backlot? The Jerusalem and Jungle sets would
be out of place in downtown Atlanta. As we were talking about only 28 acres,
space had to be made to recreate Peachtree street in Culver City. In a brilliant
move, Selznick decided kill two birds with one stone and burn the existing
sets, creating false fronts for the filming for the Burning of Atlanta scenes in
the upcoming movie. They prepared everything, ran fuel lines to the old sets,
and had three 5000 gallon water tanks to put out the flames after filming. They
used 15000 gallons of fuel oil, 50 studio firemen and 200 studio helpers to help
contain the blaze if it should get out of hand. Roll cameras, light the match.
All seven Technicolor cameras ( all there were at the time) started filming and
for 113 minutes the fire blazed. The fire was so intense that the public of
Culver City jammed the telephones lines, thinking MGM was burning down.
A scene from King Kong and The Burning of Atlanta with it on fire.
After the fire was finished, the reconstruction of the backlot started. All of Atlanta was being built from scratch, including the train station, Frank’s store, Shantytown, Aunt Pittypat’s house, and Scarlett’s mansion, Tara. The set for the city of Atlanta, the largest every constructed for a single picture, consisted of fifty-three buildings and seven thousand feet of streets. To accomplish the feeling and look of Atlanta they had to convert the soils of California into red Georgia clay. Trucks lumbered in and out of the studio gates, bearing loads of crushed brick to scatter over the sets.
I thought this was interesting, In the Black Widow episode, The Duo figure out where Black Widow is hiding and go to her hideout. The same house was used in Gone With The Wind as Aunt Pittypat's house. It is here that Melanie has her baby, Prissy says " Miz Scarlet, I dont know nuthin bout birthin no babies" and Rhett picked them up the girls for a nice ride through burning Atlanta. Add to this, in 1938 Talulah Bankhead auditioned for the role of Scarlet in GWTW loosing out to Vivian Leigh, thirty years later is starring in Batman on the same set. She was a friend of William Dozier the Exec Producer AND he was friends of David O Selznick who created GWTW who died in 1965. Shortly after this was filmed, Miss Bankhead passed away. Almost too much trivia huh?
Thirty Years Later in the Same Spot !
Well they did finish Gone With The Wind and the backlot was used later in the Rebecca with the director, Alfred Hitchcock. Selznick had gone to other things and RKO had the studio back by 1948 and Howard Hughes bought controlling interest in RKO and pretty much ran it into the ground. In 1952, Superman used the backlot to film the first season with George Reeves as the "Man of Steel"
Look closely in this photo, under Superman's hand is what is left of the Tara Set from Gone With The Wind. Interestingly, George Reeves The Man of Steel appeared in the movie also in 1939 as one of the Tarrelton Twins !
The Tara Set ( what was left of it) was torn down around 1959. The Real McCoys set was at the base of the hill looking up at Tara. Later Hogan's Heroes used the same area for Stalag 13. When looking at the photo below, the Tara set would have been located in the wooded area to the left about halfway down.
General Tire owned the studio (See Culver Studios for the history) for a while and in 1957 the studio was sold to Lucy and Desi Arnez. The Studio and backlot became known as Desilu Studios, a part of their holdings and Desi's office was now where David O Selznick spent many sleepless nights working on Gone With The Wind.
Here is a photo of 40 Acres during the time Batman was filming in the early 60's
During the late 50's and 60's the backlot was not only used for Desilu TV series productions, it was rented out to other companies as well. Most of the old Atlanta street scenes were still useable and they became the Streets of Mayberry from Andy Griffith in 1960. A few other TV shows to use the backlot were The Green Hornet (67) The Untouchables (59), Gomer Pyle (64) My Three Sons (60) Ben Casey (61), My Living Doll (64) Family Affair (66), The Real McCoys (57) The Joey Bishop Show (61) Mannix (67) Star Trek (67) Hogan's Heroes ( 65) among many others.
Here is a comparison photo of The Mayberry Courthouse on the 40 Acres Backlot !
Batman settled in and used the backlot on many occasions. They still used part of the Fox lot as they had a New York Street but near the end of the series, the Culver backlot was less costly to use as it was outside their stage door. When watching the series, you might become aware of the differences in the two lots, Culver had a more rundown look, warehouses, hideouts, alleys, where Fox had a big city look to it. In one episode in particular, Batman and Robin took us on a tour of the 40 Acres Backlot ! The Falseface episode chase scenes in the old abandoned Biograph Studios were actually a trip through the old 40 Acres backlot. In this episode, they enter in the top left of the backlot passing the Gomer Pyle Set, go past the old Train station from Gone With The Wind, go down the streets of Mayberry, Travel to the old West where countless RKO B Westerns were filmed, go to the remains of the old Arab Village from King Kong, The Garden of Allah and King of Kings and end up defeating False Face in the old western town where Tom Sawyer was filmed in 1937.
HOME - HISTORY - HEROES - VILLAINS - GUEST STARS - BAT VEHICLES
BAT VIDEO - TRIVIA - EPISODE GUIDE - LIBRARY - MUSEUM
