Sunday 19 January 2014

Clearing Through The To-Watch List #5: The Lone Ranger (1956)/The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold (1958)


Images from http://www.cowboysindians.com/Blog/June-2013/
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/http://www.cowboysindians.com/Blog/June-2013/
Weekend-Western-The-Lone-Ranger-And-The-Lost-City-Of-Gold/
lone_ranger_lost_city_of_gold.jpg

Dirs. Stuart Heisler/Lesley Selander


The Lone Ranger (played by Clayton Moore). When his brother was killed, he donned a mask and became a masked avenger in the American west to fight wrongdoing. The man who found him after the shooting, Native American Tonto (Jay Silverheels), decided to join him in his goal. There's no denying this character, adapted once again in a Disney blockbuster last year, feels like he's from another era now, where despite the earnest nature of the character and the potential for more works to be made, people will have political correctness issues with them even though the new film does exist. And if this wasn't a problem, the western has lost its interest for many unfortunately, and even if it was revamped for this generation, it'll be a fifty-fifty chance if there'll be a sequel to the new one. There's no denying these two films, released on DVD in the UK, one disc, to tie in with the new Disney film, are from a different era where it wouldn't be a commercial risk and b-movie features were much more prominent. And that they were for children rather than sold to the widest audience possible. There's a lightness in tone and a lot of humour. The bright colours. The Lone Ranger's clean-cut image, which Moore carries on in his stoic behaviour and moments of comedy, and the bombastic use of the 1812 Overture by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The Overture, starting with a horn, clearly begins as a Calvary charge, befitting horse races or charging horsemen. But there's always been a jaunty, playful side to it befitting comedy and for a character like the Lone Ranger charging over the plains.

The first film, the first time the character had a feature film, has him and Tonto sent into a community to investigate tensions between Native Americans and the (mostly) white populous, only to find the indiscriminate attacks presumed to be by the Natives are up to question. The second concerns Indians being killed for unknown reasons, possibly for very specific items, while a subplot follows a town doctor who is hiding his true Native American heritage. The films as entertainment are average. Their flaws equate to not being good enough westerns, for children not meaning that they should not try to be as good as they can. They're not as memorable as they should be, only alright. But there is a virtue to them that I will keep even if I forget them, and connects to the sense of having lost something now without films like these in existence. The films, for their flaws, do have the virtue that their rudimentary meat-and-potatoes filmmaking has the desire to have spectacle, showcasing talent and just having fun with their material that is drastically missed from a lot of films now, especially when CGI became a convenience for everything. They do show signs of limited budgets. Rear projection including, bizarrely, on characters on horses stood still talking. The only real technical flaw is with the first film but this could have nothing to take the creators to task for. If it was, it's an abomination of a production choice, cuts to black that suddenly kill the mood and energy of scenes, but I suspect the version Classic Media have acquired for the 2013 DVD release is one designed for television, the cuts designed for ad breaks. Commercials undermining a film's tone is bad enough, but non-existing ones doing so is just ridiculous.

The films have a solid quality to them outside of this, conventional westerns but with the playfulness and the willingness just to do something so a person can steal the scene for a trick or stunt. Moore and Silverheels have a charisma on a team. Moore also has a character who uses disguises to help him get information, including a Southern dandy in the second film, which with both cases showed he was able to be varied in both speech and body language with them, an impressive feat considering they skirt the line of being too broad in the tone of the films. This extends to the horses of the protagonists, especially the Ranger's trusted Silver, as much a person as the human characters in the mannerisms the animal can act out. Moments like this can be cheesy in a cute way, but the films show a sense of wanting to entertain the viewer that is rewarding. That they had two lead actors from the television series who were clearly so used to their roles but enjoyed them still. That they would get trained horses who would act out mock moments of gesture and humorous gags. That, especially, they would have the stunt work as they have in this; it's not imaginative, but including a brief fire stunt, you cannot help but appreciate real people doing real falls and other such sequences. This willingness to make something of interest in these films, even if the structures of the plots are what fail them, is of great appreciation.

It's also surprising, for such friendly films in tone, that they have incredibly dark and serious subject matter in them. People are still killed, and a key set piece in the first film is about Tonto being a potential victim of a lynching in the middle of a town. As the plot details for both films point out too, they are also both dealing with racism against Native Americans. It's not perfect. The Natives are treated as superstitious, played by white actors in dark body paint, and to quote Jean-Luc Godard, speak in "Navajo English" that you probably only get in films. The Lone Ranger ends up at times like a teacher lecturing children when talking to them. And while Silverheels has moments for his character Tonto to stand out, for the most part he is a dogsbody to the Ranger. If this was even a D-grade martial arts film from Asia, the Lone Ranger and Tonto would be an equal ground if just in having enough time in the spotlight as a team with the Ranger still the protagonist. Despite this though the clear messages of unity and honour for Native Americans, from matinee films like this, is still praisable and something immensely interesting about them. They suffer from not quite getting to the idealised place but this willingness to go close to these ideas, especially the second film with the doctor character who has a big character arc for himself, shows an attempt at progression.

In the end, what should be taken from films like this, for myself and anyone who viewed them, is that while it was disappointing that they weren't as good as they should have been, there was however a clear line of quality that was being kept up to. Admittedly what a large piece of their virtue is is defined by them being films from another era, where westerns like this were popular and that they weren't being made to be "adult" in a way a teenager boy would view that term. In fact these films, while still children's films in their playfulness, are far more adult in what they cover than a gritty, teenager's film (in most cases) now. It emphasises that I would rather watch films like this than many of now. Although I have optimism for the new one...but that's an entirely different subject of topic in my mind to deal with.

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