The Lone Ranger:
A Thug? Say It Ain't So!
by Don Drewniak
During the
October through March period in the early to mid-1950s
when the weather made playing baseball on a
Saturday afternoon either impossible or miserable,
the Park Theater in Fall River was the place for
kids to go.
If ever there
was a bargain, this was it. For a quarter, or the
shaking of a piggy bank mixture of pennies,
nickels and dimes, kids were treated to several
cartoons, a serial, a newsreel, two feature films
(usually westerns or science fiction) and a stage
show in between the two movies. There is not a
single one of the westerns (or as most kids
called them, “Cowboys and Indians”)
that I remember. However, among the science
fiction films that I recall seeing (or think I
recall seeing) at the Park Theater were The
Day the Earth Stood Still, The Man from Planet X,
The Thing from Another World, When Worlds Collide,
Red Planet Mars, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms,
Invaders from Mars, It Came from Outer Space,
Phantom from Space, Creature from the Black
Lagoon, Killers from Space and Them!
My two
favorites were Them! and The Thing from
Another World (better known as The Thing).
Them! was the first of the 50s giant-insect films
and one of the first to use radiation from atomic
explosions as a causal factor in science-fiction
films.
The Thing
scared me more than any of the other Park Theater
science-fiction movies. A crashed flying saucer,
along with an alien encased in ice, was uncovered
by a U.S. Air Force crew in the Antarctic. The
alien was brought back to a remote research
outpost. It broke free when an Air Force corporal
covered the block of ice containing the alien
with an electric blanket which, unbeknownst to
him, had been previously turned on.
The ice melted
thus freeing the plant-based alien who went on a
destruction and killing spree. Some years later,
I found out that the part of the alien was played
by James Arness, who went on to gain fame playing
the part of Marshall Matt Dillon on television’s
Gunsmoke.
The shows at
the Park Theater consisted of on-stage
performances by either clowns, jugglers or
magicians. There might have been other acts, but
these are the only ones still roaming around in
my memory. The big moment, however, came right
after the end of the day’s act — the
drawing for prizes. Several hundred sugar-hyped
kids began screaming and yelling while holding
their precious ticket stubs. The sugar, of course,
was the result of having stuffed themselves on
Sky Bars, Hershey’s Chocolate Bars, Milky
Way’s, Tootsie Rolls, M&Ms, Peanut M&Ms,
Snickers and 3 Musketeers.
Somehow, all
were convinced that the screaming and yelling
would increase the odds of winning one of the
dozen or so prizes. Ultimately, the winning of a
prize (something I never did) probably proved to
be as disappointing as not winning. Why? The
values were roughly akin to what one “wins”
today after spending ten dollars or so at a
boardwalk arcade.
I don’t
remember the theater being anything less than
filled for those Saturday afternoon extravaganzas.
During the
second half of the 50s (as I matured), I
frequented the Academy Theater in downtown Fall
River and area drive-in theaters. Among the
classics that helped me gain an appreciation of
the arts were The Blob, The Amazing Colossal
Man, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Earth vs. the
Flying Saucers, It Conquered the World, Attack of
the Crab Monsters, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman
and I Married a Monster from Outer Space.
******
In the early
days of television, it was often difficult for
kids (younger than I was, of course) to
distinguish what was real from what was not.
Despite the visible strings that “animated”
Howdy Doody, legions of four, five, six
and even some seven-year-old kids could not be
convinced that he wasn’t real.
While still
restricted to watching television on my Uncle Al’s
set as our family had as yet to purchase a
television, next to the Adventures of
Superman, my favorite program was The
Lone Ranger. With three or four episodes
featuring the Lone Ranger and Tonto firmly etched
in my nine-year-old brain, I ventured off to the
Park Theater knowing that a new serial, Radar
Men From the Moon, was about to begin.
Cartoons over, onto the screen flashed, “A
Republic Serial.” This was quickly followed
by a long-range shot of a flying figure not
unlike Superman without a cape. That image
rapidly disappeared with a close-up showing the
figure wearing a round, silver-colored helmet
with large openings for its mouth and two eyes.
The helmet was cone shaped above the head.
“Look, it's
the Tin Man,” screamed a kid sitting three
seats from me. Every kid sitting within a radius
of twenty feet laughed. The flying “Tin Man”
was the hero, Commando Cody.
The beginning
was every serial-loving kid’s dream. Kaboom!
An oilfield went up in flames. Kaboom! An
electric transmission line was destroyed. Kaboom!
A large office building was blown apart. Cheers
from the audience.
The scene then
switched to a laboratory where Commando Cody (wearing
a suit) had been working on a rocket ship. With
him was a good-looking, young female (a staple of
serials and science-fiction movies of the era)
and a male scientist. He had to be a scientist
because he was wearing a lab coat.
Newspaper in
hand, the female read an article to her
companions that described the thirteenth
explosion, one that had taken place at “Area
Defense Headquarters.”
At this point,
a Mr. Henderson (wearing a suit, of course), who
“only answered to a few people in the
country,” returned from a visit to
Washington, DC (where else?) and informed the
threesome that the government believed the
explosions may have been from an atomic-ray
machine. How was this deduced? Astronomers had
been noticing “an unusual amount of atomic
activity on the moon.” Laughable now; quite
plausible in the early 50s.
Henderson
quickly put it all together, “Atomic
activity on the moon, atomic blasts on Earth.”
The solution? Commando Cody would pilot his
untested rocket to the moon.
Scene shift.
The open back of a truck. Two men inside (wearing
suits, of course). A device that had to be the
dreaded atomic-ray machine. An approaching train.
Kaboom! Cheers from the audience.
Thug One said
with a laugh, “That did it.” And added
a line or two more about getting to a pass where
a troop train would be coming through.
“Hey,”
I yelled, “that guy sounds like the Lone
Ranger.”
“Shut up,
kid,” said someone sitting behind me.
He sounded
older than me, so I figured it wouldn’t be a
good idea to shower him with a half-full
container of orange soda.
Reports came
to Commando Cody about the train wreck, the
nearby truck with two men in it and something
that looked like large gun. Cody changed into his
flying suit, which included a rocket backpack,
and ran outside.
“Look at
that,” said another kid who was sitting
nearby, “he takes off just like Superman.”
Looking back on those days, I wonder if the
actors shared the same springboard.
Cody managed
to intercept the two and opened fire with a
pistol. The bad guys ran out of ammunition and
hightailed it, leaving the truck and the atomic-ray
gun behind. For whatever reason, Commando Cody
didn’t go after them.
During that
sequence, not only did I once again recognize the
voice as that of the Lone Ranger, I also got a
facial close-up. Yes, I was old enough to know
that both Superman and the Lone Ranger were
fictitious characters played by actors. But the
Lone Ranger as a thug in the employ of Retik, the
evil ruler of the moon?
Say it ain’t
so.
Oh, no!
Episode One of the twelve-part serial ended with
Commando Cody, then on the moon, apparently
vaporized by Retik who used a ray-pistol. Now, I
knew Cody couldn’t have been vaporized, but
like thousands of kids around the United States (and
more than a few adults) I couldn’t resist
going back for Episode Two. True to the world of
serials, the film had been turned back forty
seconds or so. Added was Cody ducking behind a
shielding object. It was the object that had been
vaporized. Surprise!
In all, I
watched five of the twelve episodes, including
the last one. During a film career that spanned
twenty-one years beginning in 1937, Clayton Moore
appeared in over two hundred films, serials and
television programs (including 169 Lone Ranger
episodes). His film career ended with the second
of two feature-length movies, The Lone Ranger
and the Lost City of Gold (1958). This
followed The Lone Ranger (1956).
For the next
forty years, in the guise of the Lone Ranger,
Moore crisscrossed the United States making
personal appearances, television guest shots and
commercials. He embraced his Lone Ranger identity
and carved out a successful post-film career.
The
Lone Ranger
ABC Television,
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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