Actors who have tried to edge out Clayton Moore haven’t done too well over the years.
And they haven’t deserved to.
In fact, they have deserved to fall flat on their faces, which is what has happened when they tried to take over the reins from the Masked Man.
Who was that Masked Man?
Why, it was the Lone Ranger.
And Disney has once again shut down the project to return Kemosabe to the big screen. This time it was to have featured Armie Hammer as the Lone Ranger and Johnny Depp as Tonto.
You may remember — though who could fault you if you didn’t? — that there was an incredibly ill-fated effort in 1981 “The Legend of the Lone Ranger,” in which Klinton Spilsbury played Kemosabe. A great irony from the movie is that both “Kemosabe” and “Klinton Spilsbury” now mean the same thing — “he who no one knows.”
Actually there was an irony in the film. John Hart had a small role. If you are a true Lone Ranger fan you know that Hart tried to step into Clayton Moore’s boots in 1952 for one season when the TV show’s producers tried to get cheap on the American public.
Moore allegedly wanted a raise and the producers thought they could plug in Hart, because it didn’t matter to us who was behind the mask. The public wouldn’t have it.
The moguls claimed Moore wanted more money, but years later he insisted that wasn’t so. All Moore wanted was to be the Lone Ranger.
Here is the point. Moore lived this role. On screen — big and little — and off of them, he was the Lone Ranger.
It was wrong for the producers of the 1981 flop to try to bully the old man into not appearing in the mask, and they paid the price. The public stayed away from their garbage in droves.
Who knows whether Hammer has a career in front of him or not? But Depp has proven himself with some great roles, most recently by taking on John Dillinger in “Public Enemies,” and he did a great job, showing that he is more than just a drunken pirate.
He’s got a world of characters to chose from.
Leave the Masked Man and his faithful Indian companion to cinematic history.
They are part of our heritage.
They don’t need to be reinvented.
Try to produce something fresh instead.
— Chuck Smith