Movie buffs scour Sierra for film locations

Movie Road leads visitors to the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine to an area where numerous movies, TV shows and commercials have been filmed over the last 70-plus years.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Kent Sperring and Jim Boyd drive down Movie Road to begin their search for film locations in the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Kent Sperring has a moment of exhilaration when he matches a scene from a movie with a spot in the Alabama Hills. Armed with still photographs and frame grabs, Sperring is a part of a small group of men and women who roam the area looking for real-life screen locations.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Kent Sperring matches a cannon emplacement and camera platform in a still photograph from the 1936 John Wayne movie “The Oregon Trail,” shot in and around the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Lone Pine Peak and the Alabama Hills below are illuminated by the morning light. Film buffs hunting for shooting locations are sometimes frustrated by geographic features that look one way in the long shadows cast by the morning sun, and a different way altogether at noon.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Kent Sperring, left, and Jim Boyd are buffeted by a strong, cold wind as they search for film locations in the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

One of the most famous rock formations in the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine is the Mobius Arch, framing the peaks around Mt. Whitney.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Longtime Lone Pine resident Kerry Powell recalls the early days of moviemaking in the Alabama Hills as she stands in the Beverly and Jim Rogers Lone Pine Film History Museum, which she helped establish.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Jim Boyd, from left, Kent Sperring and Carol and Dan Gillespie look for telltale geographic features while watching an episode of the TV western “Have Gun Will Travel,” which ran from 1957 to 1963, in the theater at the Beverly and Jim Rogers Lone Pine Film History Museum.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

The Alabama Hills, known for unusual rock formations, is a favorite area among directors looking for a badlands backdrop for many westerns, TV shows, science-fiction movies and car commercials.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Kent Sperring, left, and Jim Boyd search for obscure film locations in the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)