Great Americana Legends: Legend of the Lone Ranger

 Not many heroes from the wild west era of Hollywood have the staying power and respect as, The Lone Ranger, thanks in most part, to the incredible strength of Clayton Moore, who brought a level of credibility and trust to the character that nobody since has come close to.

In 1981 the masked avenger of the west took to the big screen with an unknown behind the mask, seems appropriate too bad it wasn't.  Klinton Spilsbury was a photographer and sculptor in New York when he was discovered for the role and looked good in the mask, but his acting was so bad (some claim intoxication, but no confirmation) it had to be dubbed over by actor, James Keach (National Lampoons Vacation) for the entire film. 

They did consider some experienced actors for the role; Stephen Collins (Star Trek The Motion Picture), Nicholas Guest (National Lampoons Christmas Vacation) and the more experienced Bruce Boxleitner (Tron) were all considered but they went with the tender foot. 

For the role of Tonto they wanted to make sure he was an American Indian, Michael Horse was cast, in one of his only two roles he ever had, but a silversmith by trade.

As a 10 year old kid, I was unaware of the dub and was awestruck by the film, especially with the incredible cast of characters.  President Ulysses S Grant (Jason Robards), Wild Bill Hickok (Richard Farnsworth), Buffalo Bill Cody (Ted Flicker) and General George Custer (Lincoln Tate) all appeared in the film, like a wild west version of, The Justice League.

One of the biggest concerns of producers was that the film not be seen as a spoof, in fact, one producer made sure to state to the media, "this isn't Blazing Saddles."

The writers seemed promising, Ivan Goff & Ben Roberts were part creators of Charlie's Angels and had worked together on the highly successful series, Mannix.  The film's story had a good foundation to it.  Villain Butch Cavendish (Christopher Lloyd, a COLD performance but still great) kidnapped the President and demanded the surrender of Texas to be reinstated to it's own nation.

Composer John Barry did an excellent job with the score, but had some amazing voice over help from Country Music legend, Merle Hagard as the narrator of the story.  Barry also worked on Goldfinger, Lion in Winter, Out of Africa and Dances with Wolves.  But it's Hagards haunting narration of the film that kept it from being a complete overall bomb. 

Even though the film was a critical failure with critics and audiences, many like myself, remember it with great fondness and I still get moved by the first look of Spilsbury in the mask, it brought back great memories of watching Moore in the role with my Grandad. 📺

The film did have the confidence of the studio at the time, they did  a massive advertising campaign with plenty of merchandise of figures, lunch box, coloring books, board game and even a Rangers Star belt buckle, yes I still have mine.  The figures still mounted on the original cards are worth quite a bit of 💲

The film is somewhat easy to find on Youtube and I think is still worth it if you can ignore the dubbed voice of the hero, it's a pretty decent film.  Like many in this era, it has, Superman The Movie to thank for the producers & studios enthusiasm for making it to the big screen.

In modern times, there is no more Americana than Superman, but when it comes to the old west, nobody compares to The Lone Ranger, that's why he would cameo on an episode of Happy Days as the childhood hero of, The Fonz, which can also be found online and worth the look, it's great. 👍

For the record, I absolutely LOVE this film and am not ashamed of it in any way at all, it's a great part of my childhood.  The Disney remake of 2013 on the other hand is an embarrassment to the legendary characters, it was absolutely awful.