The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981 film)

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The Legend of the Lone Ranger
Original threatrical poster
Directed by	William A. Fraker
Produced by	Walter Coblenz
Written by	Gerald B. Derloshon, Ivan Goff, Michael Kane, Ben Roberts, William Roberts, George W. Trendle
Starring	Klinton Spilsbury, Michael Horse, Christopher Lloyd, Matt Clark, Juanin Clay, Jason Robards, John Bennett Perry
Music by	John Barry
Cinematography	László Kovács
Editing by	Thomas Stanford
Release date(s)	May 22, 1981
Running time	98 min
Country	United States
Language	English
IMDb profile

The Legend of the Lone Ranger is a 1981 film of the story of The Lone Ranger, a Western character created by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker. The title has been used twice previously.

1 Taglines
2 Marketing
3 Reception
4 Trivia
5 Awards and nominations
6 External links

[edit] Taglines

The untold story of the man behind the mask and the legend behind the man.
The loyal friend that he trusted. The woman that fate denied him. The great silver stallion he rode. And his consuming love of justice.

[edit] Marketing

For several years there had been stories that a major studio would be making a big-budget, full length feature film based on the story of the Lone Ranger. There was apparently an assumption that many older baby boomers would be interested in seeing a big-screen treatment of their small-screen hero of the 1950s. After several false starts and rumors, such a film was actually made. Word filtered out that in this "new" version, some of the stereotypical elements which had been in past versions, such as Tonto's pidgin English, would be removed and the story, always rather stilted in the past (the primary audience for earlier versions had always been children), would be updated to be more "realistic". The film got off to a bad start in the area of public relations when one of the first things that its producers became noted for doing was attempting to constrain Clayton Moore, star of the old television series, from appearing anywhere as the Ranger, or in public wearing a mask. Moore's response was to adopt the wearing of wraparound sunglasses resembling his former mask. The public reaction to this was overwhelmingly negative, as it seemed an attempt to remove a source of income from an elderly man who had played a beloved character and seemed to have little else going for him.

[edit] Reception

The film was released to massive publicity in 1981 and did poorly. Box office receipts were far short of the amount needed to recoup the costs of the film, and critical reviews were almost unanimously negative. Despite the presence of renowned actors in supporting roles, including Christopher Lloyd and Jason Robards as villain Butch Cavendish and President Ulysses S. Grant respectively, the film vanished from theaters rapidly. The actor playing the Ranger (Klinton Spilsbury) has never appeared in another film, while the actor portraying Tonto, Michael Horse, has done somewhat better, appearing in many minor films and as a regular on the Canadian television series North of 60 as well as the American series Twin Peaks.

[edit] Trivia

The events surrounding the release of this movie would be satirized in the episode "Who Was That Mashed Man" of the TV sitcom Night Court, where a case comes through the courtroom involving: an elderly man who played the "Red Ranger", a famous cowboy of yesteryear that was popular with children; and the producers of a movie that is a modernized remake of the character...turning him into a swearing, womanizing modern action hero. Both parties are clashing over the elderly man appearing in public as his old persona.

Humorist Russell Baker satirized the producers' legal action against Clayton Moore in his newspaper column. The piece (titled "Bye Bye Silver Bullets") had the Lone Ranger in a swank attorney's office being forced to hand over Silver, his mask and his silver bullets.