The sands of time are not fine enough for The Rifleman. The crew of the ABC show recently improved on nature while filming in the Mojave Desert of California, where a half-ton of fuller's earth was whipped into a sandstorm.
Sand, wind and actors were imported. The fuller's earth was brought along because it was clean "dirt"—a powered clay "de-germed" to protect the actors. Four wind machines created 30-mile-an-hour-gusts.
More baffling than the technical problems were the unexpected results. After each scene equipment had to be dug out; Chuck Connors' rifle had to be cleaned again and again; it took 30 minutes to uncover Connors' buried script. And after six hours, the company had to vacate because nature threatened to unload a real desert storm.
