Drive over the hill and you see a sleepy little valley just waking up to the din of construction projects. It's not the place you'd expect to see Hollywood heavyweights, yet Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Clint Eastwood, Walter Matthau and Fred Savage have left their footprints in the historic town.
It's been years since the last blockbuster featured scenes of Dayton, but the area continues to be promoted as a filming location.
"Dayton has a look that can play for Westerns, or the 1930s or today, as a town that has an old look," said Robin Holabird, deputy director of the Nevada Film Office, which promotes state locations to meet the needs of film productions.
The office tries to put together a package of locations in the same area for producers. The less they have to travel to find different sites, the more likely they are to consider a location.
The 1961 cult classic "The Misfits" was filmed almost exclusively in northernwestern Nevada. It was the last film completed by both Monroe and Gable, and also starred Montgomery Clift, who died soon afterward.
Scenes were filmed in Reno and Pyramid Lake. Dayton's Odeon Hall provided the bar scenes, inside and out; a rodeo arena was created in town; and the alkali flat near Silver Springs was the site of the movie's wild-horse roundup
Other movies with scenes in the Dayton area include 1973's "Kill Charley Varrick" with Walter Matthau, "Honky Tonk Man" with Eastwood in 1982 and "The Wizard" with Savage in 1989.
Commercials are more common these days.
"A year ago, there was interest in Dayton for a film, but funding didn't come through for it," Holabird said.
The alkali flats where real Nevada wild horses were lassoed, restrained, and released for "The Misfits" are now named Misfits Flat. The broad, flat expanse rimmed by mountains is a continuing attraction for commercial production and other film shots.
Lester Robinson, owner of Complete Milworks Services, purchased Misfits Flat a couple years ago from David Stanley, who had owned it since the 1960s.
"I bought the flats just to preserve it," he said. "I have no great plans."
But he does work with studios interested in using them for film and still photos.
"It's interesting dealing with film studios," said Robinson who has been in front of the cameras as an extra.
"Everybody's so obsessed with pleasing the director. It's nice to see. It's antithetical to the way people look at work (today). It's almost play, but they take it so incredibly serious."
Recent projects at the flats have included a BBC production on gambling, a Lexus commercial, a Monster Garage shoot and a variety of projects by film students.
"It's the big shoot, the big vista," Robinson said of the attraction of the flats. "It really highlights product, for one thing. So when you're shooting a car, there's really no distraction.
"And you can make some dust."
Promoting film production is becoming more of a challenge, Holabird said. Small-budget films, like television movies, are going to Canada. And development is compromising the big-sky shots.
"It used to be you could go up to the Sutro Tunnel site and look out over nothing. Now you look out over tract housing. That's true of much of Northern Nevada," Holabird said.
Computer animation could also decrease interest in Misfits Flat.
"I'm afraid a lot of this stuff is going to go digital, and they're not going to need these things (like wide-shot locations) anymore," Robinson said.
Sally Taylor is night editor and Dayton reporter for the Nevada Appeal. Contact her at staylor@nevadaappeal.com or at 881-1210.
