In 1938, this hill area, among many others in the Alabama Hills, stood in for the hill country of northern India when RKO filmed the classic adventure movie Gunga Din on location in Lone Pine. Hundreds of horsemen raced across the hills, and elaborate sets were built here and nearby while the cast and crew lived for weeks in a tent city off Movie Road. Directed by George Stevens, the epic starred Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Victor McLaglen, and Joan Fontaine, with Sam Jaffe as Gunga Din, the waterboy who wanted very much to be a soldier.