RKO Forty Acres

RKO Forty Acres was a film studio backlot owned by RKO Pictures and later Desilu Productions, located in Culver City, California. Best known as Forty Acres, or "the back forty",^[1] it had other names such as "Desilu Culver",^[2] the "RKO backlot" and "Pathé 40 Acre Ranch" depending on which studio owned the property at the time. For nearly fifty years it was known for its outdoor full-scale sets such as Western Street and Atlanta Street or Main Street and was used in films like King Kong (1933) and Gone with the Wind (1939), and television shows like Bonanza and Star Trek.^[3]

The property was a triangular parcel of land that measured 28 ¹⁄₂ acres (11.5 ha),^[4] located a few blocks from RKO (now "The Culver Studios")^[5] which was situated to the west. It was bounded by Higuera Street to the north, West Jefferson Boulevard, Ballona Creek and Culver City Park to the south and Lucerne Avenue to the west. In 1976 it was razed for re-development and is known today as the southern expansion of the Hayden Industrial Tract.^[6] A number of the buildings in the industrial park have been converted to television studios. One of the shows produced at the park is Hell's Kitchen.

History

The property on which the backlot was located was originally intended to be a lease for Cecil B. DeMille’s production of the 1927 film The King of Kings.^[5] On it he constructed the historical City of Jerusalem, which remained for the RKO production of King Kong in 1933. By then it was known as Forty Acres and owned by RKO Pictures.

In 1935, David O. Selznick leased the property from RKO for his new studio, Selznick International Pictures. For his 1939 production of Gone with the Wind, the plantation Tara, the Atlanta Depot (based on Atlanta's 1853 Union Station), and other Atlanta buildings were constructed on Forty Acres. The depot and many of the Atlanta buildings became permanent fixtures on the property until its final days, while the set of Tara was sold in 1959 to investors who planned to open a theme park in the Atlanta area (see Tara (plantation)). From 1943 to 1958, a separate part of the 28.5 ac (11.5 ha) known as the African jungle set, located on the opposite side of Ballona Creek, was used extensively for the Tarzan series by RKO, and later for The Adventures of Jim Bowie television series by Desilu.^[4] Following years of turnovers by several owners, including Howard Hughes, the backlot was practically deserted and cinematic productions declined. It was purchased in 1957 by Desilu with the intention of filming for the burgeoning television industry.

Television

Forty Acres is best remembered for providing the backdrop for the fictional town of Mayberry on the television series The Andy Griffith Show.^[7] Many of the street scenes and buildings on the backlot were seen regularly on television screens across America and became quite familiar with viewers. The original Town of Atlanta set, comprising a New York style street, a town square and a residential area to the east, was situated in the center of the property and was used on shows like Adventures of Superman,^[3] Ozzie and Harriet,^[3] Batman,^[3] The Green Hornet,^[3] and Mission: Impossible.^[8] It was also used on Star Trek in four episodes entitled "Miri", "The Return of the Archons" and "The City on the Edge of Forever" plus "A Piece of the Action". Sharp-eyed television viewers could note many visual cues that crossed over from one series to the next, including the structures themselves, or signs on doors and windows. In Star Trek's "The City on the Edge of Forever" for example, a crossover from The Andy Griffith Show was evident by noting a window sign for "Floyd's Barber Shop" in a particular scene involving Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and Edith Keeler (Joan Collins) who were strolling by.^[8]

Forty Acres was also the backdrop for a 1961 episode of My Three Sons entitled "The Horseless Saddle", and five episodes of the TV series Bonanza where the backlot’s Western Street, next to the Garden of Allah (1936) set, served as a trail town. An added feature was the fact that some portions of the backlot were occupied by fields and scrub and provided the ideal conditions for filming a western. The Tara set, which sat on a sloping rise at the north western corner of the property, was torn down in 1959 to eventually become the Stalag 13 set for Hogan's Heroes.^[3] Most of the sets, which included Camp Henderson on Gomer Pyle,^[3] were situated primarily in the center, south and west end of the property. The narrower east end was the site of a western town set at one time, and was later home to an unusual, narrow alley set lined by two long facades facing each other. The alley set was constructed for the 1968 Robert Wise film Star! starring Julie Andrews, and it also later made a brief appearance in the film Switchblade Sisters (1975), as did the streets and buildings of the central town area.

Overall, the property was an undulating plateau with a southern slope (by the town square) that led to Ballona Creek. Trees screened the northern and southern perimeter of the property.

List of familiar backlot buildings

Core structures that stood for decades and appeared in many productions are listed here, most of which were constructed to represent, in Gone with the Wind, the antebellum Town of Atlanta, and later used for the fictional Mayberry. This portion of the backlot was the most permanent, and thus the most repeatedly recognizable, existing from 1939 until 1976. Other structures like the Jerusalem set, which was torched^[5] to make room for the Atlanta set, or Tara, which was replaced with the Hogan's Heroes stalag set, did not survive as long. The western/European set at the east end of the backlot also did not survive past the mid sixties.

The two main arteries that traversed the Atlanta/Mayberry set were Atlanta or Main Street, which ran east/west and opened at one point onto a town square, and North Street, a cross street that bisected it at the four corners^[8] just west of the square.

Image	Structure	flrs	Location	years	Seen on	Seen as
	church	2	SE end of town square	1947–76	The Andy Griffith Show The Untouchables	All Souls Church[8]
	courthouse	2	NE of town square	1947–76	The Andy Griffith Show The Untouchables Star Trek: The Original Series	Mayberry Courthouse[8]
	residence	2	across from church	1939–76	The Andy Griffith Show The Untouchables	the Taylor home[8]
	bank	2	SE corner Atlanta/North	1939–76	Adventures of Superman The Andy Griffith Show The Untouchables Gone with the Wind Star Trek #28	Mayberry Bank[8] National Hotel[9] where Kirk & Spock emerge[10]
	store/cafe	3	NW corner Atlanta/North	1939–76	The Andy Griffith Show Gone with the Wind	Weaver's Department Store[8] Norcross Merchandise[9]
	main hotel	2	center, town square	1945–76	The Andy Griffith Show The Set-Up Star Trek #8	Walker's Drug Store[7] Hotel Cozy[11] Rusk Hotel[8]
	tall hotel	4	NW of town square	1947–76	The Andy Griffith Show The Long Night The Set-Up Star Trek #28 Star Trek #8	Mayberry Hotel[8] Allegheny House fire escape overlooking alley[11] ...where Kirk steals clothes[8] where Kirk finds Miri[8]
	theatre	2	NW of town square	1939–75	Adventures of Superman The Andy Griffith Show The Untouchables The Set-Up Star Trek #28 Superman	Grand Theatre[8] Paradise City Arena 21st Street Mission[8] Smallville depot/Daily Planet[7]
	buildings	2	rear of courthouse	1955–76	The Andy Griffith Show Star Trek #8	feed grain store[8] Bartlett stable[8]
	shop	2	E of town square	1955–76	The Andy Griffith Show Star Trek #8	Biggs used furniture[12] Onlie's hideout[10]
	store plaza	2	N of town square	1955–76	The Andy Griffith Show Star Trek #28	Floyd's Barber Shop[8] Still labeled "Floyd's Barber Shop"
	depot	1	west of town	1939–71	Gone with the Wind	Atlanta Railroad Depot
	store/cafe	3	SW corner Atlanta/North	1939–76	Gone with the Wind	Lake & Lewis Hardware[9]
	Tara	2	NW portion of backlot	1939–59	Gone with the Wind	The O'Hara plantation
	office	3	NW end of Atlanta St	1939–76	Gone with the Wind Star Trek #28	Atlanta Examiner[8] where McCoy emerges[8]
	cafe	2	S side of Atlanta St	1938–76	The Set-Up Star Trek #28	Ringside Cafe[11] Walt's Restaurant[8]
	hotel	2	SW of town square	1938–76	The Long Night The Set-Up Superman	Travellers Hotel Bijou Theatre[11] Hotel Silsby / hospital[7]
	townhouse	2	top of North St	1950–76	Star Trek #21	Reger's home[8]
	town hall	2	bottom of North St	1950–76	One Minute To Zero Star Trek #21	Headquarters 5th Air Force "The Red Hour" clock[8]

List of known productions at Forty Acres

Film

Television

See also

• History of film
• Movie studio

References

Coordinates: 34°01′19″N 118°22′56″W / 34.021942°N 118.382277°W / 34.021942; -118.382277

External links

• RetroWeb Studio Backlots website: "40 Acres"