On the maps, this area straddling the Utah-Arizona border is known as the Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. In the movies, Monument Valley has become -- thanks to John Ford and generations of filmmakers after him -- the image of what the West is.

"What's iconic about it is that awesome space down there, and the incredible beauty of those sandstone buttes and mesas, which are confined to that area only," said James D'Arc, curator of Brigham Young University's motion-picture archive. "It remains an incredible place of awe and reverence."

Monument Valley's contribution to the movies will be celebrated Friday night at Goulding's Lodge, the valley's only hotel, with a free open-air screening of what some consider the greatest Western ever, John Ford's 1956 drama "The Searchers."

Ford filmed seven Westerns -- from "Stagecoach" in 1939 to "Cheyenne Autumn" in 1964 -- in Monument Valley, and the director and location are so entwined that there is a spot in the valley called John Ford's Point.

Others have filmed in Monument Valley. Stanley Kubrick shot part of the hallucinogenic finale of "2001: A Space Odyssey" there. Clint Eastwood used the rock formations for the opening of "The Eiger Sanction." "Forrest Gump," "Easy Rider," "National Lampoon's Vacation" and "Back to the Future Part III" all shot segments there.

Even cartoons borrow the valley's icons. They inspired the deserts through which the Coyote repeatedly chased the Road Runner. The Pixar film "Cars" was set partly in Ornament Valley, whose mesas and buttes were an automotive-inspired riff on Monument Valley's landmarks.

The location is more beautiful than practical. "I don't think 'Ford" was trying necessarily to be accurate, or else he'd build the towns near rivers and lakes," Eastwood said at a Ford retrospective at the 1998 Telluride Film Festival. "Arid prairies -- who the hell builds like that?"

"There's a mysticism that's fostered by the still-amazing remoteness of its locale," D'Arc said. "One really has to work to get there. . . . You somehow value its unique qualities much more than if it was a drive-in experience."

How Ford came to Monument Valley, to make "Stagecoach," is a legend worthy of a John Wayne movie. It begins in 1938, when Harry Goulding told his wife, Leone (nicknamed Mike), to pack a bedroll.

"He said, 'I heard there's going to be a movie made in this area, and I want to go talk to the person who's making it,' " said Ronnie Biard, operations manager of Goulding's Lodge. "At that time Monument Valley was so remote, Mrs. Goulding hardly ever saw any tourists or anybody new. She said, 'I was happy to get to go anywhere.' "

According to Biard, who heard the story from Mrs. Goulding many times before her death in 1992, Leone collected all their cash, about $60, and some supplies from the lodge trading post. The Gouldings left the next day for a three-day drive to Los Angeles, with Leone knitting while Harry drove. After an overnight stay with relatives, Harry and Leone headed to Ford's studio office.

"Harry went in to talk to John Ford and asked the secretary there if he could see John Ford," Biard said. "The secretary asked him, 'Do you have an appointment?' When Mike was telling me the story, she said, 'I doubt Harry knew what an appointment meant.' "

Goulding was undeterred, Biard said. "Harry didn't say a word to 'Leone". He just came out, reached into the pickup, and got his bedroll and started back into the office and went in. And she said, 'I didn't really know what was going on, but I kept knitting.'

"Harry went back into the office, and the secretary saw him and said, 'What are you doing with that?' And he said, 'Well, where I'm from, we take time to see anybody who comes to see us, so I plan on just staying here until John Ford comes to see me.' And he put his bedroll down."

The secretary called Ford's location manager, presumably to throw Goulding out. "But Harry had pictures of Monument Valley with him, and he laid the pictures out on a bench," Biard said. "Instead of throwing Harry out, he looked at the pictures and said, 'Where were these taken?' "

Soon the location manager introduced Goulding to Ford and showed Ford the photos. "It wasn't long until they decided that this was where they were going to make the picture, 'Stagecoach,' and told Harry they were going to start production in 15 days."

Harry Goulding left satisfied, but Leone was worried. "She said, 'Well, Mike, they're coming to Monument Valley to make this picture, and they're bringing this whole cast and crew, probably going to be 50 of 60 people. And we've got four cans of green beans on our shelves and two cans of corn. How are we going to take care of these people?' " Biard recalled Mrs. Goulding ask. "They fretted over that all the way from Los Angeles back to Flagstaff."

The Gouldings knew the Babbitt family, who ran the major grocery store in Flagstaff (and darn near everything else in northern Arizona), and Harry planned to ask them for credit to buy supplies.

"That's when they first realized the power that Hollywood has was when they pulled into the Babbitts' parking lot," Biard said. "There was already four huge trucks loaded up with all the supplies they could possibly need, waiting for them to follow them up to Monument Valley."

Goulding's Lodge, being the only lodging built on Navajo land (thanks to Harry's work with the federal government and his good relations with the Navajos), became Ford's headquarters for "Stagecoach" and subsequent films. (The original lodge, which now houses a museum, was Capt. Nathan Brittles' post in "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.")

D'Arc said the Goulding legend is "a great story," but not the whole story. "If you were to cite anyone who first got the movie companies to Monument Valley, it's Zane Grey," D'Arc said.

The pulp novelist first visited the area in 1907 and used it to visualize the settings of his early Western novels. When Paramount Pictures bought Grey's books, D'Arc said, "Grey continually needled Jesse Lasky 'one of Paramount's founding partners" to shoot these stories in the locales he had envisioned them." Grey took Lasky to Monument Valley, and Lasky decided to make several Grey-inspired silent films in Monument Valley, notably "The Vanishing American" in 1925.

D'Arc said he suspects Ford's longtime actors, such as Wayne and George O'Brien, worked on those Paramount films and backed up Goulding's pitch.

"Ford was enough of a businessman in the late 1930s, he wouldn't willy-nilly pack off and go to this remote area on the Utah-Arizona border without some sort of corroboration," D'Arc said.

"I'm not doubting that it happened," D'Arc said of the Goulding legend. "I think the story has more prominence than it should have in Hollywood lore."

Ford would have appreciated the argument. After all, it was a newspaperman in another Ford movie, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," who uttered this famous line: "This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

Contact Sean P. Means at movies@sltrib.com or 801-257-8602. Send comments about this article to livingeditor@sltrib.com

Screening at Goulding's

"The Searchers" will be screened on an open-air screen Friday at 8:30 p.m. outside Goulding's Lodge, 1000 Main St. at Highway 163, Monument Valley, Utah.

Admission is free, and seating is first come, first served. Bring quilts, blankets or lawn chairs. Comfortable clothes, good walking shoes and bug spray are recommended.

A three-hour tour of Monument Valley movie locations will begin at 3 p.m. Friday in the lobby of Goulding's Lodge. There is a fee for the tour; call 435-727-3231 for information.