Remember When: Movie Set at Barbars' Ranch in 1994

Today we'll look at a few photos taken at the Tilton Ranch in 1994.   

When I started in rabbits in 1981 with a French Lop, I was very fortunate to have met Barbara Baird who became my mentor.   See:

Northern California Angora Guild: Barbara Baird Remembered

Though Barbara never raised any of the Angora breeds, she was knowledgeable, helpful and kind.  The family ran a ranch that included 2,500 acres of land that raised cattle.   The cattle raising land was high on the hills, what us visitors saw were about 5 acres that had several residential houses and many barns.   Barbara and her husband Harold had both passed away, a majority part of their ranch is currently an open space reserve, see Morgan Hill’s Historic Tilton Ranch Protected Forever  while other parts are now used for various other purposes.

In 1994, a movie scout selected the front part of the ranch to be a part of the movie set, and we were able to have a sneak peek of movie making.   The title of the movie at the time of shooting was "The Lies Boys Tell" but later when released it was retitled as "Take Me Home Again".   The stars of the movie were Kirk Douglas, Craig T. Nelson and Bess Armstrong.     

All three stars of the movie were captured in this photo that I took.   Kirk Douglas then Bess Armstrong and next to a young lady was Craig T. Nelson.

Tilton Ranch was used as the residence of Bess Armstrong who played the ex-wife of Craig T. Nelson.   Kirk Douglas played a dying old man who wanted to go back to his childhood home to die and his son Craig T. Nelson helped him to accomplish the wish.  They stopped by at the ex-wife's home to visit the grandkids.    Kirk Douglas in white walking to the van, they are leaving for the destination of Kirk Douglas's childhood home.  (The location of the home was off San Carlos Street in San Jose, the building was about to be demonished at the time, in very bad shape.  It was just walking distance away from a feed store that we sometimes visit: Sam's Downtown Feed Store.   The feedstore had closed down in December 2022 after 40 plus years in business.)

Last review of the dialog before Kirk Douglas enter the van.

Production assistant accompany Kirk Douglas to get into the van.

If you think the van is driving like how we do it, wrong.    As you can see there is a truck in front of the van with all the equipment to film and to record the dialogs. 

Craig T. Nelson in the driving seat and Kirk Douglas in the passenger seat.    In the movie, you'll see just two of them having a conversation.   For spectators outside, we saw all the wire, camera, sound equipment, .... attached to the van with a large number of crew working around the van.

Here is a close up of Craig T. Nelson and Kirk Douglas inside the van.

See how many workers surrounging the van?

This bedroom was decorated to be the grandkids' bedroom.  No shoot at this room on the day we visited.   

If you are interested, you can view the full length movie on YouTube:

 (187) The Lies Boys Tell AKA Take Me Home Again- HQ - YouTube

It has been over 30 years I had these photos in my stash.   When looking for historical photos for NARBC, I saw these photos again, thought our reader may have fun seeing them.   In case anyone wants to know whether this was the first time I visited a movie shoot, no.   I lived in Hong Kong for several years and my family had some connections to the old time Hong Kong movie studios.  I watched movie making when I was as young as 9 or 10 years old.  Then I watched movie making again about 10 years later when I return to Hong Kong for a visit.      Movie making is very slow, it takes hours and hours of repetition to make a few minutes on the screen.   These few hours in 1994 reinforced my experience of the past.