3 more movies made in Arizona

Film fan and reviewer Barbara VanDenburgh highlights some of your favorite movies made in Arizona.

To see the previous list, go to movies.azcentral.com. “Rio Bravo” (1959): Rio Bravo is a town in Texas, but this Howard Hawks classic was shot in Technicolor at Old Tucson Studios in Arizona. It makes a good Old West backdrop for the drama: John Wayne plays Sheriff John T. Chance, who gets in deep when he arrests the brother of a powerful rancher and has to hold off his gang with the help of a young gunslinger (Ricky Nelson) and a drunken deputy (Dean Martin). “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” (1974): Before he fell in with gangsters, Mar- tin Scorsese directed this affecting drama about a young widow named Alice (Ellen Burstyn) who with her young son sets out across the Southwest with California in her sights and dreams of a singing career. She makes it only as far as Tucson, where she takes a job as a waitress. That sounds like a sad ending, and it would be if she didn’t meet and fall in love with Kris Kristofferson. Burstyn won a best-actress Oscar for her performance. “Two-Lane Blacktop” (1971): This wonderfully weird counterculture cult classic stars James Taylor and Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson as a pair of street racers who drive their modified ’55 Chevy from California east along Route 66 (Warren Oates stars as a rival driver). A stark time capsule of America before the interstate system, it was filmed on roads all over the South and Southwest, including in Flagstaff and Kingman.