RKO Forty Acres
RKO Forty Acres was a film studio backlot in the United States, owned by RKO Pictures, located in Culver City, California. Best known as Forty Acres and "the back forty," it was also called "Desilu Culver," the "RKO backlot," and "Pathé 40 Acre Ranch," depending on which studio owned the property at the time. For nearly 50 years it was known for its outdoor full-scale sets, such as Western Street, Atlanta Street, and Main Street and was used in many films and Gone with the Wind ) and television series.
The property was never actually forty acres in size. It was a triangular parcel of, a few blocks from RKO-Pathé 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 redevelopment. Today it is known as the southern expansion of the Hayden Industrial Tract. 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
On 22 March 1926, Cecil B. DeMille leased the 28 1/2 acre property, on which the backlot was located, from Achille Casserini, a Swiss immigrant, for his production of the film The King of Kings. On it he constructed historical Jerusalem, which remained for the RKO production of King Kong. 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 production of Gone with the Wind, the plantation Tara, the Atlanta Depot, and other Atlanta buildings were constructed there.
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.
From 1943 to 1958, a separate part of the 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.
Following years of turnover 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. Many of the street scenes and buildings on the backlot were seen regularly on television screens across America and became quite familiar to 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 used on shows like Adventures of Superman, Ozzie and Harriet, Batman, The Green Hornet, and Mission: Impossible. The town square was also used on Star Trek in three episodes titled "Miri," "Return of the Archons" and "City on the Edge of Forever," while another area of the lot, the "Arab village," was used in "Errand of Mercy" and the first pilot, "The Cage." 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. For example, in Star Trek's "The City on the Edge of Forever," a crossover from The Andy Griffith Show can be seen by a sign for "Floyd's Barber Shop."Forty Acres was also the backdrop for an 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 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 razed in 1959 to become the Jerusalem set for The Greatest Story Ever Told. By 1965 the site was occupied by the Stalag 13 set for Hogan's Heroes. Most of the sets, which included Camp Henderson on Gomer Pyle, 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 Robert Wise film Star! with Julie Andrews in the lead role, and it also later made a brief appearance in the film Switchblade Sisters, as did the streets and buildings of the central town area.
Overall, the property was an undulating plateau with a southern slope 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 recognizable, existing from 1939 until 1976. Other structures like the Jerusalem set, which was torched to make room for the Atlanta set, or Tara, which was replaced with the Hogan's Heroes, did not survive as long. The western/European set at the east end of the backlot disappeared in the late 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 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 ShowThe Untouchables | ||
| courthouse | 2 | NE of town square | 1947–76 | The Andy Griffith ShowThe UntouchablesStar Trek: The Original Series | ||
| residence | 2 | across from church | 1939–76 | The Andy Griffith ShowThe Untouchables | ||
| bank | 2 | SE corner Atlanta/North | 1939–76 | Adventures of Superman The Andy Griffith ShowThe UntouchablesGone with the Wind Star Trek #28 | ||
| store/cafe | 3 | NW corner Atlanta/North | 1939–76 | The Andy Griffith ShowGone with the Wind | ||
| main hotel | 2 | center, town square | 1945–76 | The Andy Griffith ShowThe Set-Up Star Trek #8 | ||
| tall hotel | 4 | NW of town square | 1947–76 | The Andy Griffith ShowThe Long Night The Set-Up Star Trek #28 Star Trek #8 | ||
| theatre | 2 | NW of town square | 1939–75 | Adventures of SupermanThe Andy Griffith ShowThe UntouchablesThe Set-Up Star Trek #28 Adventures of Superman | ||
| buildings | 2 | rear of courthouse | 1955–76 | The Andy Griffith ShowStar Trek #8 | ||
| shop | 2 | E of town square | 1955–76 | The Andy Griffith ShowStar Trek #8 | ||
| store plaza | 2 | N of town square | 1955–76 | The Andy Griffith ShowStar Trek #28 | ||
| depot | 1 | west of town | 1939–71 | Gone with the Wind | ||
| store/cafe | 3 | SW corner Atlanta/North | 1939–76 | Gone with the Wind | ||
| Tara | 2 | NW portion of backlot | 1939–59 | Gone with the Wind | ||
| office | 3 | NW end of Atlanta St | 1939–76 | Gone with the Wind Star Trek #28 | ||
| cafe | 2 | S side of Atlanta St | 1938–76 | The Set-Up Star Trek #28 | ||
| hotel | 2 | SW of town square | 1938–76 | The Long Night The Set-Up Adventures of Superman | ||
| townhouse | 2 | top of North St | 1950–76 | Star Trek #21 | ||
| town hall | 2 | bottom of North St | 1950–76 | One Minute To Zero Star Trek #21 |
List of known productions at Forty Acres
Film
The King of Kings The Godless Girl The Fall Guy Bird of Paradise The Most Dangerous Game Lucky Devils King Kong The Return of Chandu The Little Minister Bonnie Scotland She The Garden of Allah Gone with the Wind The Hunchback of Notre Dame Intermezzo Rebecca Citizen Kane The Devil and Daniel Webster The Magnificent Ambersons Tarzan Triumphs Tarzan's Desert Mystery Tarzan and the Amazons China Sky The Story of G.I. Joe The Long Night Tarzan and the Huntress The Miracle of the Bells The Set-Up Tarzan's Magic Fountain The Big Steal Mighty Joe Young The Great Rupert Where Danger Lives Tripoli Tarzan's Peril Superman and the Mole Men- Two Tickets to Broadway Macao (film) One Minute To Zero Eight Iron Men Tarzan and the She-Devil The Raid Escape to Burma Night of the Hunter Around the World in Eighty Days Attack! Death of a Scoundrel Screaming Eagles Jet Pilot Verboten! Blood and Steel The Greatest Story Ever Told Ride Beyond Vengeance Star! Switchblade Sisters Lepke Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS The Fortune The Four Deuces
- ''Vigilante Force''