Back in 1966, the Gunsight and Lopez passes in the Santa Rita Mountains southeast of Tucson were center stage for shooting of the film “Hombre.”
In the movie, Paul Newman’s character, a white man raised as an Apache, gives his life defending a group of bigoted white stagecoach riders from outlaws led by Richard Boone.
The book “In Search of Western Movie Sites” details the measures that director Martin Ritt took to adapt the filming to the passes’ rugged, almost inaccessible terrain.
“The mine set was built at 5,200 feet, just below Lopez Pass, literally clinging to the cliff,” said
the 2014 book, a compilation of 64 newsletter articles about old Western movie sites written by Carlo Gaberscek and Kenny Stier.
“A crew of 18 carpenters, five painters, 10 laborers, 2 greens-men, a couple of powder monkeys and a bulldozer operator moved up there to construct sheds and cabins,” the book says.
To make the film in sometimes harsh weather in March and April 1966, the actors and crew drove daily from Tucson to the foot of the mountain, and rode the last few miles to the set by Jeep, the book says. Gunsight Pass was the scene of a few key sequences, including the stagecoach attack and Newman’s effort to counterattack. The company took a two-mile hike to reach Gunsight Pass, and in some scenes they
needed to be lowered by rope to the bottom of a cliff.
“But Richard Boone (better known as ‘Paladin’ in TV’s ‘Have Gun Will Travel’), who couldn’t stand that ride up and down the mountain each day, hired a helicopter to take him to and from that location,” the book says.
