The Lone Ranger

Plot synopsis:
In 1933, a boy, Will, who idolizes the legendary Lone Ranger, encounters the elderly Comanche Native American Tonto at a sideshow in a San Francisco fair. Tonto proceeds to recount his experiences with that Old West adventurer.
In 1869, lawyer John Reid returns home to Colby, Texas via the uncompleted Transcontinental Railroad, managed by railroad tycoon Latham Cole. Unknown to Reid, the train is also carrying Tonto and outlaw Butch Cavendish, who is being transported for his hanging after being captured by Dan Reid, John's Texas Ranger brother. Cavendish's gang rescues Butch and derails the train. Tonto is subsequently jailed. Dan deputizes John as a Texas Ranger, and with six others they go after the Cavendish gang.
Cavendish's men ambush and kill their pursuers in a canyon and Cavendish cuts out and eats Dan's heart. Tonto, who has escaped from jail, comes across the dead men and buries them. However, a white spirit horse awakens John as a "spirit walker", and Tonto explains John cannot be killed in battle. Tonto also tells him Collins, one of the Rangers, betrayed Dan and is working with Cavendish, whom Tonto believes is a "wendigo". As John is thought to be dead, he wears a mask to protect his identity from enemies. Tonto gives John a silver bullet made from the fallen Rangers' badges and tells him to use it on Cavendish.
At a brothel Collins recently visited, Red Harrington informs them about Dan and Collins' fight over a cursed silver rock. Meanwhile, Cavendish's men, disguised as Comanches, raid frontier settlements. John and Tonto arrive after raiders abduct Dan's widow and son, Rebecca and Danny. Regretting his earlier actions, Collins attempts to help Rebecca and Danny escape, but is shot dead by Cole, who rescues them. Claiming the raiders are hostile Comanches, Cole announces the continued construction of the railroad and dispatches United States Cavalry Captain Jay Fuller to exterminate the Native Americans.
A Comanche tribe captures John and Tonto soon after the pair finds railroad tracks in Native territory. The tribe leader tells John of Tonto's past: As a boy, Tonto had rescued Cavendish and another man from near-death and later showed them a mountain full of silver ore in exchange for a pocket watch. The men murdered the tribe to keep the location a secret, leaving Tonto with great guilt.
Tonto and John escape as the cavalry attack the Comanche. At the silver mine, they capture Cavendish. Tonto demands that John use the silver bullet to kill Cavendish, but John refuses. Tonto attempts to kill Cavendish, but John knocks him unconscious and brings in Cavendish alive. Upon returning Cavendish to Cole and Fuller's custody, Cole is revealed to be Cavendish's partner and brother. Fearing that if his actions are publicly revealed he'll be charged as a war criminal, Fuller sides with Cole. Rebecca is held hostage, and John is taken back to the silver mine to be executed. However, Tonto rescues him and the two flee as the Comanche attack and are massacred by the cavalry. Realizing that Cole is too powerful to be taken down lawfully, John dons the mask again.
At Promontory Summit, during the union ceremony of the railroad, Cole reveals his true plan: to take complete control of the railroad company and use the mined silver to gain more power. John and Tonto steal nitroglycerin and use it to destroy a railroad bridge. With Red's help, Tonto steals the train with the silver, and Cole, Cavendish and Fuller pursue him in a second train on which Rebecca and Dan Jr. are being held captive. Riding his horse, John pursues both trains. After a furious chase and fights on both trains, both Cavendish and Fuller are killed, Rebecca and Dan Jr. are rescued and Cole drowns buried beneath the silver ore after the train plunges off the severed bridge and into the river below.
The town and railroad enterprise recognize John (whose identity is still unknown to them) as a hero and offer him a law-enforcement position. John declines, and he and Tonto ride off. Back in 1933, Will questions the truth of the story. Tonto gives him a silver bullet and tells him to decide for himself, and then vanishes, with a crow flying away into the night.

Tags: insanity, violence, cruelty

Review:
My favorite serial..
This is simply the best serial ever made and it's a crying shame that the original print has been lost (or destroyed as some claim).
It was filmed at Lone Pine, Ca., the perfect location for the perfect serial.
The 1940 condensation "Hi Yo Silver" is too short, leaving out many key elements, but for dyed in the wool fans of the original its better than nothing.My copy of the serial is pretty ragged, with Spanish subtitles, but I understand is the only copy available.
Too bad.
This serial is what all serials should be and seldom are..
A Film That Cries Out for Restoration.
"The Lone Ranger" is yet another classic from the Republic thrill factory, one of the best serials ever.
It has fine acting (for a serial, anyway), exciting action, thrilling music, and a clever and intelligent plot.
Part of the fun is that, unlike most films of this genre, the villain is well-known; the characters (and audience) have to figure out which of the five male leads is the masked Lone Ranger.I wish I could say "The Lone Ranger" was as exciting to watch as other classic serials as "Spy Smasher" or "Adventures of Captain Marvel," but...
unfortunately, due to the serial's divergence from the official Lone Ranger image, most copies were apparently destroyed.
My public-domain copy is pieced together from Mexican and French copies, and rendered almost unwatchable by poor picture quality, Spanish subtitles from the Mexican prints, and horrible dubbing in the French prints.
The overall effect of the film's state makes it almost unwatchable, but the sheer quality of the movie itself somehow manages to shine through.If ever there were a film that richly deserves all the benefits of a full restoration, this is it: digital remastering, a new audio track, this serial needs it all!Somebody needs to come to the Lone Ranger's rescue!.
One of the Best Serials made....
."The Lone Ranger"....with Lee Powell  starring along with other "Rangers"& ,you do not know who really is the masked man, until the final chapter...!
But there are great production sequences of action and suspense...throughout each episode.
Republic Pictures Studio knew how to make the Serials  that moved fast and offered realistic action.
This 15-minute super-serial  has been "lost" until now, and hard-core fan-collectors  could only hope that a good original print could be found and offered to the public on  Video..
now if only it could be colorized...and done correctly!
It's a winner the way it still is today!.
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..
Hi-Yo Silver...awayyyy!.
"The Lone Ranger" is one of Republic Pictures most famous serials partly due to the fact that it has largely been unavailable for many years.
A more or less complete copy (at approximately 240 minutes) has surfaced recently complete with new title cards (for the chapter intros).
The picture quality is not the best but it is nonetheless watchable, does not have any subtitles and includes the unmasking scene in Chapter 15.
The story starts out with Captain Smith (Stanley Andrews), the leader of a Quantrill's Raiders type of gang following the Civil War, assuming the identity of the murdered Colonel Jeffries (Forbes Murray), who has been sent by Washington as a financial administrator to collect taxes.
Shortly thereafter "Jeffries" men ambush and wipe out a company of Texas Rangers (led by Edmund Cobb) who are returning from the war to restore order to Texas.
All but one that is and you know who that is.
An indian named Tonto (Chief Thundercloud) finds the wounded ranger and nurses him back to health.
The ranger vows to avenge his comrades and names himself The Lone Ranger.
The Lone Ranger is joined by four other patriots and they form an alliance of five rangers (Hal Taliaferro, Herman Brix, Lee Powell, Lane Chandler, George Letz) against Jeffries and his gang which include among others, veteran bad guys John Merton, Tom London, Charles King and Bud Osborne.
Blanchard (George Cleveland) along with his daughter Joan (Lynn Roberts) arrives from Washington to take over as governor but is imprisoned by Jeffries.
Father McKim (William Farnum) works closely with The Lone Ranger and Blanchard.
Over the course of the 15 chapters the rangers die heroically one by one until only one remains.
His identity is kept secret until the final chapter.
This serial benefited from having been directed by Republic's crack action team of William Witney and John English and the expert stunt work of Yakima Canutt (with his famous "falling off the team of horses under the wagon" stunt) and Bill and Joe Yrigoren among others.
The action is non-stop and the stunts are breath taking.
In the 30s, most action pictures had the luxury of large casts and this shows in the large number of bad guys and ranchers that appear.
The Lone Ranger spends much of his time galloping back and forth across the same valley yelling Hi-Yo Silver!
Some trivia: Stanley Andrews would go on to play ironically enough, "The Old Ranger" on the long running TV series "Death Valley Days".
Lynn Roberts also acted under the name of Mary Hart (no not THAT Mary Hart).
William Farnum's career dated back to the early days of silents.
He starred in "The Spoilers" (1914) and was a major star in the 20s.
George Cleveland is probably best remembered for playing "Gramps" on the original "Lassie" TV series starring Tommy Rettig.
Hal Taliaferro had been a series western star under the name of Wally Wales.
Herman Brix became Bruce Bennett and enjoyed a lengthy career as a character actor (eg "The Treasure of Sierra Madre").
Lee Powell's career fizzled out after this film and he was killed in action in WWII in 1944.
George Letz changed his name to George Montgomery and starred in westerns and action films for many years.
He was also an excellent craftsman and made furniture for the rich and famous after his career in movies ended.
Chief Thundercloud, whose real name was Victor Daniels was the only member of the cast to reprise his role in the sequel,"The Lone Ranger Rides Again" (1939).
John Merton, Republic's stock villain of the 30's and early 40s was the father of Lane Bradford who also had a career as a villain for many years.