by Ed Travis
The Lone Ranger is a character that just may not be adaptable to 2015 sensibilities. Much digital ink has been spilled over the follies and virtues of Gore Verbinski’s 2003 box office disaster The Lone Ranger. I myself enjoyed the film while acknowledging that it was an unmitigated financial and critical failure. Interestingly, the same fate awaited the almost wholly forgotten 1981 adaptation The Legend Of The Lone Ranger. Only ever coming up occasionally and tangentially at best amidst the downward spiral of 2013’s adaptation, it appears that The Legend Of The Lone Ranger has been so successfully swept under the rug that it took until this very week for a high definition release to hit the market. Perhaps the studio and marketers behind 2013’s film preferred it that way, or perhaps the film had so slight a following that even amidst a new, mega-budgeted Lone Ranger film’s release… it wasn’t deemed worthy of discussion.
According to the never dubious and always reliable Wikipedia, The Legend Of The Lone Ranger was a disaster from start to finish, with star Klinton Spilsbury’s voice being dubbed over by another actor, a nasty PR disaster when producers tried to ban TV’s Lone Ranger Clayton Moore from making charity appearances in costume, and a box office bomb to boot. What little I did know about this film was that it starred some dude with a hilarious name that I’d never heard of before. Turns out that is because the experience of making Legend put Spilsbury off of acting for good and it remains his only feature film performance.
On top of all these disastrous occurrences, the film itself has a long list of unfortunate flaws. Not the least of which being the troublesome and age old problem of Native Americans being represented on film in an unfortunate manner. Here we have Twin Peaks’ Michael Horse playing Tonto, so at the very least there’s a Native person playing the Native hero. Compared to Johnny Depp’s portrayal, I’d say Horse does a pretty good job of maintaining the character’s traditionally stoic demeanor while not necessarily to a demeaning degree. That said, amidst John Reid’s origin story (that of being raised among the Natives after his parents are mercilessly killed) are many cartoonishly colorful Native people. And it just feels a little bit wince-inducing. Tonto is a tough character in 2015. Yes, I want to see more Native heroes on screen. And Horse’s Tonto is probably the best Tonto I’ve seen. But there’s no getting around his “sidekick” nature.
But that’s only one of many issues plaguing The Legend Of The Lone Ranger. Among the others: Spilsbury does not look even remotely cool in the mask and costume, and the overdubbed voice doesn’t help matters. The cinematography has an intentional but awful hazy, old-timey quality to it that doesn’t evoke the good old days so much as make one feel like the original elements used for this transfer have been licked from top to bottom by a large animal. It is a soft, glowing look that is aesthetically displeasing, and which is disconcerting being that director William A. Fraker served as Director of Photography on such classics as Rosemary’s Baby, Bullitt, and Tombstone. It also takes about half of the runtime to complete the Reid-to-Ranger transition, and features a love story that goes absolutely nowhere. Perhaps the most ill-fated decision was to have the admittedly beloved Merle Haggard croon not only a weak folksy theme track called “The Man In The Mask”, but also to narrate the film in rhyme. It is about as bad as you think it would be.
That’s a pretty long list of tone-deaf errors and missteps. Which is weird, then, that by the end I found myself really invested in the finale and thrilled by the obligatory use of the William Tell Overture. The entire final set piece of Legend is incredibly satisfying, if potentially too little too late. Featuring Reid and Tonto rescuing a kidnapped President Ulysses S. Grant (Jason em-effing Robards) from a villainous former soldier hell-bent on founding his own country (Christopher Lloyd in a rare but effective turn as a heavy), there are enough stunts, explosions, and fisticuffs, captured in classic Hollywood fashion, to satisfy any Western fan. On top of that, Grant’s travel companions, who ride to his rescue once our heroes blow down the gates, include Wild Bill Hickock and Buffalo Bill Cody! The film has a generally family-friendly tone, reminiscent of the classical era of Westerns, so when the Ranger is shooting guns out of people’s hands and stuntmen are jumping onto galloping horses and lauching off of air ramps in an explosion, I simply couldn’t help but enjoy the old school thrills of it all. And the Ranger’s famous horse Silver gets a lot of screen time as well, becoming easily a more dimensional character than Reid’s love interest.
There are too many issues to warrant a strong recommend for The Legend Of The Lone Ranger. But I find myself, just two years after Verbinski’s widely reviled film, coming once again to the defense of an underloved and problematic Lone Ranger adaptation. I suspect my humble defenses here will not be enough to resurrect this IP from the ashes for another full generation or so, if ever.
The Package
Including only a trailer (albeit a pretty effective one), this release offers a contemporary peek at a largely forgotten revival of one of the great Western heroes. It doesn’t look all too great in high definition due to the aforementioned hazy quality of the cinematography, and the film is a minor footnote at best. For the curious, like I myself was, this release might be worth a look. Maybe you’ll be as enchanted by the old school stunts and explosions and horse work as I was. But there’s a greater chance you’ll have lost interest by the time that killer finale comes around.
And I’m Out.
The Legend Of The Lone Ranger hits Blu-ray on July 14th, 2015 from Timeless Media Group (a division of Shout! Factory)