The Lone Ranger and Tonto begin their war against Cavendish’s men and it doesn’t take them long to determine his next move. Since the world believes John Reid to be dead, he dons a black mask and becomes the Lone Ranger. Tonto trains John in the important aspects of survival in the Wild West, including fighting, riding, and shooting, advising him on the latter topic that adding silver to his bullets will make them more accurate. He is found by a now-adult Tonto, who again takes him into his village and encourages John’s resolve to seek revenge against Cavendish. After witnessing Cavendish’s brutality first hand, John rides with Dan and the Rangers, but they are led into a trap in which John is badly injured. John learns from Dan, now the leader of Del Rio’s troop of Texas Rangers, that Del Rio is besieged by the men of Butch Cavendish, a disgraced Union officer with designs to own all of Texas.
Even before his arrival in Del Rio, he learns that justice is often decided with fists and guns, as when he’s forced to rescue his stagecoach from a gang of masked bandits. Years later, the now adult John Reid returns to his home of Del Rio, Texas an attorney with ambitions to bring justice to the lawless frontier. Tonto, the Native child, takes John to his village to be raised as part of their tribe, and the young man thrives until his older brother Dan locates him and sends him to Detroit to live with relatives. Once the danger has passed, the two boys return to the Reid homestead to see John’s parents murdered by the same bandits before their very eyes. The film begins with a young John Reid hiding a Native American boy his own age from pursuing bandits. The filmmakers obviously desired to give audiences a new take on the character, but it was an unwanted one that showed a gross misunderstanding of the Lone Ranger mythos. The Legend of the Lone Ranger’s fatal mistake is in its deviation from this formula.
The Lone Ranger stories are formulaic, to be certain, but it is a formula that has proven successful time and time again. It is unknown how many people bypassed the film due to its uniformly negative publicity, but those that did see it would not have been presented anything that would have challenged the consensus. Andy Warhol’s interview with Spilsbury in the November 1980 issue of Interview may have been the final nail in the coffin for the still-unreleased film, as a reportedly drunken Spilsbury confessed to affairs with several well-known male actors in what appeared to be an intentional act of self-sabotage. The film would be Spilsbury’s only acting credit with good reason-all of Spilsbury’s dialogue had to be redubbed by James Keach - Stacy Keach’s brother - and his wooden performance earned him several Razzie awards, beating out Gary Coleman and Miles O’Keefe (star of the equally lamented Tarzan, the Ape Man) for “Worst New Star.” Spilsbury took the brunt of the bad publicity for the Clayton Moore lawsuit, despite the fact he had no part in it, and apparently he was aware of the public resentment. Klinton Spilsbury was chosen as the title character, which didn’t help matters. This action was perceived as a Hollywood studio exerting its control on a beloved old man, and caused a good deal of negative publicity for the film before filming had even begun. In order to minimize distractions from the upcoming film, the producers filed a legal injunction against the aged Moore to prevent him from these public appearances or identifying himself as the character. Clayton Moore, who played the role in the television series, had made a living in the years since the show by making public appearances as “the Lone Ranger,” complete with the character’s trademark black domino mask. The first major misstep made by the film’s producers was in underestimating just how popular the television version had been. Plagued by both internal and external troubles, the film was a notorious flop, one that almost killed an American icon.
#The legend of the lone ranger tv#
One would have expected a Lone Ranger feature film to be met with the same renown that greeted the TV show, yet 1981’s The Legend of the Lone Ranger failed to meet expectations.
This incarnation of the Lone Ranger was so popular that it helped take ABC from a regional to national network, and episodes are reportedly still airing consistently into the present day. The Lone Ranger was introduced in a 1933 radio play, but the character is best known for the television version that aired on ABC from 1949 to 1957.