The Lone Ranger (1938)

Directors:

John English
William Witney

Writers:

Fran Striker (radio serial)
Barry Shipman (original screenplay) ...

Release Date:

12 February 1938 (USA)

Genre:

Western

Tagline:

Original screen play by Barry Shipman, Franklyn Aderon, Ronald Davidson, George Worthing Yates, Lois Eby (all original posters and film credit)

Plot:

CHAP. 1, HI YO SILVER: An outlaw leader planning to take conrol of Texas after the Civil War kills Colonel Jeffries...

Plot Keywords:

Ranger | Lone Ranger | Silver | Texan | Cave

Cast

Silver King the Horse	...	Silver, the Lone Ranger's Horse
Chief Thundercloud	...	Tonto (as Chief Thunder-Cloud)
Lynne Roberts	...	Joan Blanchard (as Lynn Roberts)
Stanley Andrews	...	Capt. Smith posing as Colonel Jeffries
George Cleveland	...	George Blanchard
William Farnum	...	Father McKim
Hal Taliaferro	...	Bob Stuart
Bruce Bennett	...	Bert Rogers (as Herman Brix)
Lee Powell	...	Allen King
Lane Chandler	...	Dick Forrest
George Montgomery	...	Jim Clark (as George Letz)
John Merton	...	Henchman Kester
Sammy McKim	...	Sammy [Chs. 11-15]
Tom London	...	Henchman Felton
Ray Bennett	...	Henchman Taggart (as Raphael Bennet)

Runtime:

264 min (15 episodes)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA High Fidelity Recording)

Certification:

USA:Approved

Filming Locations:

Alabama Hills, Lone Pine, California, USA

Company:

Republic Pictures

Trivia:

Film debut of George Montgomery.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Walking Tall: The Payback (2007) (V)

The Lone Ranger Shell Game

It never ceases to amaze me the historical variations that our movies, but especially those old time serials would have us believe. This one has Texas out of the Civil War when in fact General Richard Taylor's army there was the last to surrender. In any event Reconstruction has come to Texas and Abraham Lincoln has started it.

Frank McGlyn is once again Abraham Lincoln has appointed a tax collector for the reconquered Texas. But bandit Stanley Andrews has hit upon a real moneymaker of a scheme. He captures and kills the real tax collector and assumes his identity. Then the bandits start collecting in earnest.

When Andrews massacres a group of reconstituted Texas Rangers the story of how Tonto played by Chief Thundercloud rescues the lone survivor comes into play. The gimmick here though is that there are five guys any one of them could be the real Lone Ranger.

In the television series the Ranger often dropped the white outfit and the mask and used disguises as an undercover method of law enforcement. He was primarily masked though. Here he walks around like Don Diego de la Vega, but when trouble comes he dons the mask more like in the Zorro tradition. And we never see Tonto in the serial except when he's riding with the Ranger.

Not till the last chapter do we learn who the Lone Ranger is. The others keep getting themselves killed and they are eliminated one by one. Like overturning the shells at a carnival sideshow to find the elusive pea.

The assassination of Lincoln is worked in as George Cleveland is sent to investigate the Texas situation as to why there still is so much unrest in Texas. His mission gets good and compromised by John Wilkes Booth.

I saw an abbreviated version of the serial and it's as silly as most of those serials back in the day were. I'll take my Lone Ranger straightforward thank you.