The Legend of the Lone Ranger
| The Legend of the Lone Ranger | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | William A. Fraker |
| Produced by | Walter Coblenz |
| Written by |
Ivan Goff Ben Roberts William Roberts Michael Kane Gerald B. Derloshon (as Jerry Derloshon) |
| Starring |
Klinton Spilsbury Michael Horse Christopher Lloyd Matt Clark Juanin Clay Jason Robards John Bennett Perry |
| Music by | John Barry |
| Cinematography | László Kovács |
| Edited by | Thomas Stanford |
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Production
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| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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98 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $18 million |
| Box office | $12,617,845 |
The Legend of the Lone Ranger is a 1981 American western film that was directed by William A. Fraker and starred Klinton Spilsbury, Michael Horse and Christopher Lloyd.
It is based on the story of The Lone Ranger, a Western character created by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker. Its producers outraged fans by not allowing actor Clayton Moore to wear the character's mask when making public appearances, and created a further bad buzz when the dialogue of leading man Klinton Spilsbury was dubbed by another actor, James Keach. The film was a huge commercial failure, and Spilsbury has never appeared in any films since.
The outlaw Butch Cavendish (Christopher Lloyd) ambushes a party of Texas Rangers, killing all except John Reid (Klinton Spilsbury) who is rescued by his old childhood Comanche friend, Tonto (Michael Horse). When he recovers from his wounds, he dedicates his life to fighting the crime that Cavendish represents. To this end, John becomes the great masked western hero, The Lone Ranger. With the help of Tonto, the pair go to rescue President Grant (Jason Robards) when Cavendish takes him hostage.
Many attempts had been made to create a Lone Ranger movie that would appeal to a modern audience, including making Tonto an equal partner and mentor to the Lone Ranger. In the movie, Tonto teaches the hero how to shoot and is mainly responsible for training Silver, the hero's horse. Moreover, Tonto speaks whole sentences, while in the radio and TV series he had quite a limited vocabulary. In another change to established canon, Reid is (at first) not an actual Texas Ranger but a civilian observer (and younger brother of the Rangers's captain) who survives Cavendish's massacre.
This film was shot in New Mexico, Utah, and California. Two of the movie's four screenwriters, Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, had previously created the hit TV series Charlie's Angels; they had also worked together on another hit series, Mannix. According to Larry McMurtry, novelist George MacDonald Fraser had written an excellent script for the film, but he was not credited in the finished film.
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Wikipedia