MRM : Disney's Lone Ranger: Wild West Wipeout

 

Today's Disney is a sad and pale comparison to it's days of greatness, no film is a better example of this than Disney's attempt at bringing one of the most hallowed and legendary wild west myths to life, The Lone Ranger.

The film was an abomination to the motion picture industry and a disgraceful insult to the American Legend.

One of the worst parts was the casting of, then red hot actor, Johnny Depp to play American Indian character, Tonto, to the loud objections of the masses to cast an actual American Indian in the role rather than just another Hollywood actor.  Depp's character was overplayed and many times seemed to be more of a focus of the film than others, including the namesake of the film.  Depp was, one of the few times, out of his element and really lost on how to portray the character.

The outlandish situations in the story and characters in the film would have been far better put in a sequel to the Will Smith & Kevin Kline hit, Wild Wild West, which was based on such things.

The Helena Bonham Carter character, Red would have been a perfect fit for the second WWW film, as would Disney's interpretation of the lead horse, Silver, who sometimes seemed to believe he was a bird. 

Disney is truly lost, the best they can do in today's market is to repeat stories they have told in the past and to buy out other franchises and characters, rather than telling classic stories in the Disney way.  Creativity has been completely replaced for the sole desire to make money, not understanding that they will never see the revenue they would under the way Walt did it.

I greatly fear for the day that Disney decides to modernize their classic, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, forcing modern political and social issues into the classic tale from Jules Verne, it only seems a matter of time.

Walt Disney's path was to unite the greatest film makers and creative minds that he could, to come up with the greatest creations and telling of tales that would spark the imagination and creativity of audiences, but there seems to be no talent or creativity in the modern Disney company at all.

Disney's telling of, The Lone Ranger couldn't get a lower rating from me, it's one of the worst films that I've ever seen, and being that I grew up watching the reruns of Clayton Moore as the legendary masked man, I consider the film as an insult to Mr. Moore and the legacy he worked so hard to give to the character.

Happy 107th Birthday to the Man in the Mask

 Happy Birthday to the late, great, Lone Ranger himself, Clayton Moore! 

Moore portrayed the classic American hero from 1949 to 1951 and from 1954 to 1957 but unlike some others, Moore embrased the character and continued to dawn the mask for the rest of his life whenever called upon, even for an unforgettable episode of Happy Days as he would surprise The Fonz on his birthday (which gave re-runs of the classic western a new surge with young people in the 70s).

He was born September 14th 1914, Jack Carlton Moore in Chicago Illinois, the youngest of three sons.  His father, Charles Sprague Moore was a well-to-do real estate broker and his mother, Theresa Violet was a housewife.

"Jack", a natural athlete, became a circus acrobat by age 8 and appeared at the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago with a trapeze act (no wonder he was so fearless of all those western film stunts).

Moving out to Hollywood in the 30's, Moore took on parts as a stuntman and bit-player between modeling jobs (yes, I said modeling), until he was persuaded to change his stage name to, Clayton by producer Edward Small.  After which Moore got parts in four Republic Pictures cliff-hangers and two films for Columbia Pictures.

Moore served his country during World War II in the United States Army as part of their first Motion Picture Unit, making training films.

Moore was working on the serial, Ghost of Zorro, when he caught the eye of Lone Ranger radio producer and co-creator, George W Trendle.  

The show and character was a world wide sensation, he became the single most recognizable character in the world for a few years

The only interruption in Moore's appearances as the Lone Ranger came from 1979 to 1984 when the film producer of, The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981, which I talked about before).  Jack Wrather owned the rights to the character and filed a law suit for Moore to stop appearing as the character, Moore continued by altering his costume and using a pair of wrap-around sunglasses instead of a mask.  The public was rabidly behind Moore in the suit (who counter-sued) and is blamed for part of that films lack of ticket sales.  (They'd have been FAR better off  by working with the legendary Moore and allowing him to help promote their film, just my take).

Even with this interruption in his portrayal, Moore will forever be synonymous with The Lone Ranger.

HIGH-HO SILVER, AWAY!!!  We thank you for all the wonderful memories, Mr Moore, and miss you!

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.