Friday, July 12, 2013

DVD Review:ENTER THE LONE RANGER(1955),THE LONE RANGER(1956) & THE LONE RANGER AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD(1957) all three rated *** out of ****

ENTER THE LONE RANGER(1955), THE LONE RANGER(1956) & THE LONE RANGER AND THE CITY OF GOLD(1957) all three rated *** out of **** Directed by Jack Cherton, Lesley Salander & Stewart Heisler. Starring Clayton Moore, Jay Silverheels, Bonita Granville, Glenn Strange, Beverly Washbourne, Perry Lopez, Michael Ansara, Robert J. Wilkes, Douglas Kennedy UnratedEach film 81 minutes in length. Released on DVD by Classic Media Home Video
Now that Disney\'s big budget film version of The Lone Ranger is out in theaters with Arwin Hammer and Johnny Depp as The Ranger & Tonto, I think it\'s appropriate enough to review the previous LONE RANGER films that are now out on DVD starring the original Lone Ranger & Tonto who were respectively Clayton Moore and real life Cherokee Indian Jay Silverheels who portrayed the characters in the famous 1950\'s TV series for 233 half hour episodes and seven TV seasons on ABC TV. I am not reviewing here the disastrous 1980 big budget LONE RANGER film starring Klinton Spillsbury & Michael Horse in the two leads since many die hard Lone Ranger fans like myself consider that particular film a cinematic abomination just like the new 2013 film version! When THE LONE RANGER TV series came to a close in 1956 after seven successful seasons, producer Jack Wrather decided to do a series of Lone Ranger films in color and in scope starring the two original lead stars of the TV series: Moore & Silverheels repeating their famos roles on the big screen.
The first film ENTER THE LONE RANGER released in 1955 was a compilation film consisting of the first three episodes of the TV series that dealt with the origin of The Lone Ranger and how he met his faithful companion Tonto. Ironically those three episodes were originally shot in color because producer Wrather possibly thought of releasing these episodes in a single film, if he failed to see the TV series project to ABC TV. But the series was abounding success on ABC and then Wrather made the decision to test the waters in releasing theatrical film versions of the Ranger\'s adventures by releasing this compilation film in 1955. That proved to be a box office success and then Wrather then produced two original Lone Ranger films starring Moore & Silverheels which were THE LONE RANGER(1956) and THE LONE RANGER AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD(1957) All three films have better production values than the TV series with more on location outdoor sequences, more gunplay and action sequences as well. The films have better cats of knowable and recognizable names such as GlennStrange(who played the Frankenstein Monster in Universal\'s HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, HOUSE OF DRACULA ^ ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN), Bonita Granville(who played Nancy Drew in a series of Universal B movies) and Michael Ansara famous for playing Indian chief Cochise in the 1950\'s TV series BROKEN ARROW. Both Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheelshave great acting chemistry and comadrie as the Lone Ranger & Tonto which they perfected after doing 7 TV seasons as those characters. The famous Lone Ranger theme is used profusely in these films although composer Les Baxter does an adequate and exciting score for these films. The plots are not out of the ordinary for Western movies such as these but they are easy to follow and for the most part well directed and scripted. The added plus of filming these movies in Techicolor and Scope add immensely to the enjoyment of these three films. Classic Media has released a DVD Box Set of all the 233 Lone Ranger ! episodes plus these three movies but the company has also released these three films separately in two DVD discs: one with only ENTER THE LONE RANGER and the other DVD with both THE LONE RANGER & THE LONE RANGER AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD as a double feature on that disc. All films have been digitally restored and remastered with Mono Sound.

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