Lone Ranger

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Just read that the new Lone Ranger movie will commence filming in February of 2012 and be released in May of 2013. Johnny Depp and others have reduced their salaries to make this film change from an on again, off again project to a full blown "on again" project. New Mexico will be the first filming location. Unknown what else is planned at this time. Depp indicates that the character of Tonto will not be portrayed as a second class person and looks forward to what he thinks will be a fun movie. Guess all of that remains to be seen and hopefully the finished product won't be something to make most or all of us groan. Bullfrog Bill

The comment on the Legend of the Golden Gun....is how I also thought would have been a good way the mask could have been passed on......with new meeting old....if only.....

But I totally agree with the costume/suit.....that is a part of the Ranger as is Superman's costume is to him......at least in the Klinton movie....it was not to bad......
I just thought his hair was to much from under his hat...




But...this was just wrong.....

We'll see see what we'll see. Oh, BTW, a new Superman flick is in the works. People were saying you don't mess with Superman's costume.

Well....they have.





He's not going to have his red trunks anymore. Aint Hollywood grand?





Maybe they are long in the tooth, but I'd opt for Mark Harmon in a western any day over a bunch of these pretty boys. Same with Liam Neeson. Josh Brolin. Dennis Haysbert. Michael Biehn tends to work. Jeff Fahey. But, again, all getting on UP there.

Howdy Rocky Lane!!

Well, if they've set the picture in 1869, as you say Pard, they've already screwed up!! The 1873 Colt Peacemaker wasn't invented until 1873!!!!! I'm under the impression that the original Lone Ranger series took place in the late 1870's or 1880's, since he wore 2 1873 Colt Peacemakers with the 5 & 1/2 inch barrel, which was the artillery model and was only created after the 7 &1/2 Army model was adapted. If the producers want the film to be authentic, then the Ranger will have to be equiped with the Remington percussion .44 model, like those shown in Hell On Wheels or a Navy .36, which was also a percussion model. They will also have to be using Spencer or Henry golden boys, because the Winchester lever action( the gun that won the west) was also not invented until 1873. Since both of the above handguns were cap and ball firearms and didn't accept the self contained cartridge we are familiar with today, what use would the Ranger have for a cartridge belt with shiney .45 long Colt cartridges in the cartridge loops????? Here we go again!! Another bunch of Hollywood dumb A--es, that apparently never even bothered to watch I episode ot the Lone Ranger series!!

Ed

C'mon, Ed! It's no different than The Comancheros, where they had Colt SAA's and Winchesters in the 1840s!

Howdy Tinhorn!!

I understand what you're saying pard, but today's Hollywood tends to be very authentic in their films, versus the old Hollywood that did whatever they wanted. Example, Hell On Wheels, The Young Riders. Lonesome Dove etc. I don't know why the new Hollywood insists on being so authentic, since the Colt Peacemaker is a lot better looking firearm than the ole cap and ball guns, but in recent western films, Hollywood has shown a propensity for reality. The drawback to this, is that when you start being realistic, it plays havoc with the type of gunbelts they wore. As I recollect, in the Klinton Spillsbury, the Ranger wore a gunbelt with a single holster on it and it didn't resemble the rig that Clayton Moore wore at all!!

Ed

True....the do tend to lean a more on the "authentic"....but like the good ol' Hollywood look to the westerns in the old days......

steel lined holsters.....fast draw rigs with conchos and such.....and Colt Peacemakers....

In the real west many folks just put their pistol in a coat pocket or stuck in their pants and didn't even wear a holster. Glad William Fichter will be in the new Lone Ranger....he's a good actor.

Ed, I understand what you're saying. It's just I hear so many people talking about how much they like The Comancheros, and it is one of the most historically incorrect Westerns ever! I believe that period movies should be period accurate, but a silver bullet in a cap and ball pistol doesn't work. They should have set the new Lone Ranger movie in the 1870s if they're using a SAA revolver, but, hey, this is Hollywood we're talking about.

Howdy Pards!!

Tom, that's correct!! A lot of the coats back then, had leather pockets for just this reason.

Tinhorn, yeah, I just can't see the Lone Ranger stuffin a silver ball in the cylinder of a percussion revolver and then puttin grease or wax over it, to keep it from fallin outta the cylinder.

Rocky Lane, now that's whut I call a Lone Ranger rig!!!!!! Where'd ya git that pitcher frum?????? Did'ya pull that up on the Pleasant Valley website???????

Ed

I always had the impression that the Lone Ranger series was set in the mid-1870s, as that totally explained for me the beautiful nickel plated matched .45 SAAs the Ranger carried and why he'd have cartridges cast from silver from his 'secret mine". That just seemed perfectly sensible to youthful me. It was all post-1873. The Bryant's Gap origin story , the Cavendish gang, the Ranger company led by John Reid's brother Dan; it all meshed up well enough.

Then came the Spilsbury thing, which is set---oddly---just after the Civil War (1865/66) and has a Union veteran John returning to Reconstruction-era, Federally occupied Texas, to clash with his brothers and neighbors politically and philosophically.

I thought that whole approach utterly unnessary. Didn't have nuttin' to do with nuttin', I always felt. Just an effor to "PC" the Ranger. THEN we have the feel of the time period moved back a good ten years and , because of that, you really DO start running into all these "Gun Problems" spoken about above. I also though this over-doing kept rolling with the transformation of the plain old band of bad-guy outlaws (Butch Cavendish, etc.) being turned into ex-confederate insurrectionists. Then you start pulling in the President, Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hickok, and everybody else in creation and the thing---to me---started getting more and more stupid with every passing minutes. It seemed more like a "Wild Wild West" episode than anything to do with the Lone Ranger!

Also could never understand how Spilsbury ever GOT the role! He wasn't an actor. He was a prop department assistant!!!! And, as soon is this fiasco folded, he was (to my knowledge) never an actor AGAIN, LOL!!! (Gee, wonder why?).





As to the Comancheros. Yeah, the weapons in the time period were preposterous. I have, of course, seen Roy Rogers as a Confederate cavalry officer shooting Colt SAAs, and other such drivel. But I never really cared. To me the "old west" was this fabulous half-real place where strange anachronisms existed, but which often didn't affect the entertainment value of the story a whit. I get annoyed at how OBSESSIVE this fixation on weapon & holster accuracy has become in film , when the story lines become meaner and more silly than those when I was a kid. I am still in awe of Peter Fonda getting gut shot on his knees in that "3:10 to Yuma" silliness, only to have a jackleg vet doctor do a "fix,fix, fix" on him (something I used to do as a kid) and then see Fonda get up and join a posse----WHEN HE SHOULD BE PAINFULLY DYING!!!! Go figure!

Yeah...ol' Klinton sorta disappered after that....I heard that he got more involved behind the camera.....sorta for the better...IMO.....I work with a guy..(not Nugget)...who just can't stand the "Hollywood" style of westerns....he perfers his to be realistic and dirty and dingy.....not the cleaned versions of the 40's - 60's.....

I just like it to be fun and a good story...I like the square jawed hero and plenty of action....I live in the real world and I like the escapism of the western movies.....with all the bad news today...it is good to return to "those thrilling days of yesteryear....


As to the quick fixes of gunshot wounds....man those are western wounds...those always heal quick.....seems sorta odd from a gun that can be fired a hundred times be fore they reload.....

Oh...Ed....that rig is from Wm. Brown Holsters.....

Howdy Pards!!

Cole, I agree!! I much prefer westerns like the Lone Ranger, the 50's and 60's t.v. westerns, the ole 40's serials, Silverado etc. I don't like muddy streets, forests. neck high weeds and pre 1873 handguns. As a gun nut, there is a good reason for my being so persnickity. All percussion handguns with cylinders had to have the black powder measured into each cylinder, then the ball forced into the cylinder, then the wax or grease applied over the ball at the end of the cylinder, then the percussion caps placed on the nipples. Not only was it a tedious and time consuming process, but every one of thm had the same problem. It's called a flash detonation!!!!! Since the black powder was not contained in a brass cartridge case, if a spark found it's way into one of the other chambers, the whole cylinder full of powder could ignite and all 6 chambers could and often did detonate!!!!!!!!!! Talk about havin a bad day!!!!!!!! Pre 1873 handguns were just about as dangerous to the fella behind the gun, as to the fella in front!! Not to mention the fact, that if it rained and the air was thick with moisture, the powder could get damp and misfire!!!!! So, if Hollywood wants to be authentic, as they seem to be these days in westerns, then they also have to deal realistically with the above problems. Now you know why Wild Bill Hickok emptied his twin Navy .36's every morning and reloaded them!! It's also the reason that John Wesley Hardin, Wild Bill Hickok, the James gang and everybody that depended on their firearm, switched to the self contained cartridge when it became available, even having their cap and ball revolvers rechambered to accept the new cartridges!! Didn't mean to burden you with a lot of technical stuff, but it's the reason that Hollywood went with the 1873 Colt SAA from the beginning. NOW, they seem to think they should be authentic!! Apparently they don't know much about pre-1873 handguns!!

Ed

Pards,
I,m not wanting to "butt in " here,my knowledge of western weaponry is ZERO,I leave that to you guys,who have forgotten more than I know,but I have a lot of sympathy in what Bill/Cole says,at least that,s what I,m thinking he,s saying,ha!
I watch westerns because I love the genre,it,s still pure entertainment for me,perhaps,excluding Walt Disney,the purest entertainment,good v bad,so the weapons they,re using isn,t really an issue with me,granted it aint kalishnikov we,re talking,it,s still down to entertainment.
In saying that,it,s still quite fascinating to see/read the knowledge you guys have,so,KEEP IT UP,ha!
Davy,westernnut.
ps,SORRY for "interrupting your discussion Pards.
Bye the way,GREAT to hear from you Bill,how are you doin Pard,written any GREAT books/novels recently,any western releases coming?
Fort Apache on blu-ray,with Hondo soon to be released on blu-ray,Bill,you know me Pard,I HAVE to mention blu-ray,ha!
DELIGHTED your back Bill.

Davy, I am a PLUGGER when it comes to writing; a real drag-your-heels type. I am dragging along with such right now and have bits and pieces of a story evolving as I go. I have a "realistic" armoury situation for a hero I've been developing. Guy has a two-gun rig which is a right-handed side draw with a 7.5 inch Colt SAA (Yes!!!!!!! Chain!!! I gotta have my PURTY Colts!!!) for things that happen on the trail----sidewinders, Injun attacks----that sort of thing. The 2nd gun is a cross-draw .45 with a 4 5/8th " barrel for DRILLIN' np-accounts with. Since it can be swept out quickly it bespeaks a real gun handler. He is one of the old Dodge City crowd who has hung out with Earp. Masterson,Tilghman,Ben and Billy Thompson & the like. He has learned shooting handguns from them, and learned rifle shooting from the great Billy Dixon. This guy, was, in fact, a kid with the hiders at Adobe Walls, and saw the Mile Shot himself.

Fellow is amiable enough, but not any pushover. He has ridden into an Arizona town near the Dragoons in 1882 , looking for somebody. In a saloon on a hot afternoon he finds a spot of trouble; a pair of bully-boys hassling an old man; calling him a liar and guffawing him about his stories of Adobe Walls. The rider recognizes the old fellow and steps in, shoving the mouths away and telling them the old fellow IS no liar; that he himself was a hider at Adobe Walls and knows the old fella. And the old man WAS there. He asks if either of these guys wants to call HIM a liar. They eye his gunbelts and demeanor and decide No. One mouths off, though, about what he'd do if this guy wasn't a gunny packing heavy iron. The stranger unbuckles his gun belts and drops them. The locals pipe up, saying don't do it!!! No!!!! The ranny, who is HUGE, moves in for the massacre----and GETS massacred. He is beaten to a pulp. It seems that this fella has learned more than gunplay from Masterson & Earp. He has learned to use his fists with punishing effectiveness.

This is no fluke, though. This man is a manhunter. After a number of years he is on the trail of a mean, wanted man; a man he plans to kill; a man he couldn't deal with before, as he'd only been a boy, himself. He's grown now, and has prepared himself for this mission for years. He is "The Vengeance Rider", and the vengeance he seeks is for a woman brutally beaten to death by a man over a decade earlier; a good woman, long suffering and gentle. She was beaten to death by a cruel, raging drunk and the boy had been there for her when she died. She's been his mother. He couldn't take up the vegeance trail at the time, as he was too young. And had a little brother and sister to look after.

Now he is grown and now he can. He doesn't want this man hung. He doesn't want to shoot him. He wants to beat him to death, like the man did his mother.

Like his father did his mother.



Maybe his search is nearing its end.



And, as to what I am saying, Davy, its straigt out of Ford: "When the legend becomes the truth, print the legend". Or, as old Gabby might say "Ya durn whippersnappers! Quit bein' so danged obsessed with what gun is which and commence tuh shootin', gol' durn ya!!".

And Chain!!! You are SOOOOOOOOO right!!!! All the hassle that went into black powdering was (and is) just a pain in the backside!!!!

Howdy Cole!!

Pard, The Vengeance Rider sounds like a good'un!! Can't wait to hear more!! And yer absolutely right about the guns!! Ole Gabby would also have said," if'fn it ain't got no Colts in it, it ain't no western!!!

Ed

All this talk about the Lone Ranger made me pull out my DVD with 13 episodes of the Lone Ranger, and watch the first 3 episodes. I like how you hardly see Clayton Moore's face until he puts the mask on. And Glenn Strange as Butch Cavendish. Now THAT'S good stuff!

Rocky Lane's Colt shore is purty!!!

We think alike on these smoke wagons , Chain! If I was a movie producer, I might do my own spin on the old black hat/white hat scenario for telling the good guys from the bad. I think I'd have the bad guys always armed with Remingtons, Schofields, and such ("homely guns", I see them as), and the GOOD GUYS armed with SAAs, unless the period depicted was too early historically (then it'd be either Colt Navys or 1860 Armys). One gun which may well have been "hell on wheels" for gunhandling---Louis L'Amour sure loved them (wrote about them often enough)---were .44 Russians, which I find ugly as sin. Glad THAT didn't transfer from the printed page to film!!

I think Ol' Clint Eastwood started all this retro stuff, gunwise, with "The Outlaw Josey Wales" and his big Dragoons (though Eastwood WAS using open-frames before that, for Sergio Leone). But---this was the CIVIL WAR and such was the right look for the time. The Eastwood re-make of "Shane"---"Pale Rider"---was where all the cap and ball stuff (with reload cylinders) got cranking, and, from other elements in the film , there seems no reason to assume it is pre-SAA. THEN comes "Unforgiven" and the Schofield pops up and we are off and running towards "different" weapons. You have the co-incident rise of Cowboy Action Shooting and Italian gunmakers like Uberti and others reproducing these old guns and the trend becomes these things being seen everywhere.



Tinhorn----early on that LR mask was a BIG sucker.Trendle wanted it that way so he could swap out Lone Rangers if he wanted to, and nobody would notice---or so he thought. Also, if you'll look; Moore only has one gun in the origin episodes. He doesn't become a two-gun man till later. But Glenn Strange makes a great Butch Cavendish, I agree. Back to the mask---after Trendel tried a shell game with the character and John Hart----he had to come back to Moore because the mask just wasn't enough to hide who was who. Moore's secret was---from the beginning---NOT to be Clayton Moore playing the Lone Ranger; it was to be Clayton Moore---playing BRACE BEAMER---playing the Lone Ranger. He was a smart cookie. The radio show was concurrent to the tv edition, and little ears could easily tell that this new TV Ranger wasn't their guy over the radio airwaves. Trendel had to fold, in the end, and Moore came back. Then, when Jack Wrather bought the rights to the character he asked Moore if there could be any improvements made. Moore said "cut down the mask". And they did, radically.

I liked the episode Legion of Old Timers, where LR and Tonto help tenderfoot DeForest Kelly keep from having his ranch sold out from under his nose by Norman Willis. Tonto becomes a makeup man and makes up LR as an old geezer with a grey beard! You just don't see Clayton Moore with the mask, unless he's in some other disguise! This is what KISS did in the 1970s. They must have learned it from the Lone Ranger!

Howdy Cole!!

Pard, I agree!! I've never seen anything remotely attractive about the S&W Russian .44 or S&W American .45 models!! Not only was the S&W .45 less powerful than the Colt .45, but the U.S. Army found out the Colt S.A.A. would shoot both cartridges, whereas the S&W model would only handle the shorter and less powerful S&W round. I will credit the S&W with the ability to load and reload faster, because of the guns top break action. The Colt S.A.A. is still the most well balanced and aesthetically pleasing firearm I've ever seen. They say that mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery!! If this be true, then the whole world knows what the most beautiful handgun ever made is. Next time you're in a gun shop, take a gander at all the Colt S.A.A. clones in the guncase!! Even American companies have copied it!! Check out the original Great Western and the Ruger Vaquero!! That .45 caliber hole in the end of that muzzle, is the whole reason for the 1911 .45 A.C.P. It was one of the U.S. Army's prerequisites. After taking on the .38 Long Colt and it's inability to do the job in the Phillipines, they couldn't wait to get their hands on another .45 caliber. Some Historians will tell you, that the .45 A.C.P is the gun that the U.S. Army ordered sent to the Phillipines!! IT WASN'T!! It was the old reliable Colt .45 S.A.A.'s gathering dust in the armorys thay wanted!! Once this ole American warhorse arrived on the scene, the U.S. Army found out that the Colt .45 S.A.A. didn't care if they were an American Sioux, Cheyenne, Navaho, or Apache Indian, bank, train or stagecoach robber or a drugged up muslim insurrectionist, the end results were the same!! If you took one of those big .45 caliber, 258 gr rounds through the chest, there was gonna be some slow walkin and sad sangin in yore household!!

Ed

Ed!!!! Absolutely

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1T08DmOGK8



This'un has some Colts in it>

Ahhhh.....the good ol' Colt .45........you just can't beat it.....big...heavy and moving slow....a lot of shock power.....that is why it is also known as the "Flying Brick"

Here are the first pictures of the new Lone Ranger and Tonto:


http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/03/08/johnny-depp-armie-hammer-lone-ranger-first-look/


I have to tell you that I'm not impressed by the way Depp looks. Hammer looks okay, but I don't want to see a whacko Tonto similar to Jack Sparrow (POC). I'm afraid that this could make Klinton Spillsbury's version look like a classic.

Nighlinger,

I just saw the picture and article in Indiewire:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/first-look-at-johnny-depp-armie-hammer-in-the-lone-ranger?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

Maybe the very same picture. Wierd, wierd, weird!!!! OMG


What do the rest of you think!

BUT, maybe it will be a hit! And maybe we will really like it. As long as Tonto isn't a clown!

Sandy

Oh....My....God.....

Hey guys and gals, here's something to see and maybe something you don't want to see - www.stuffwelike.com/2012/03/08/the-lone-ranger-first-image This picture alone tells me this will be a tough sell. Johnny Depp's popularity might be the bail out for this high $$$ production. I can only hope the movie will be better than what the photo seems to imply. Bullfrog Bill

The Crow must go or I won't go.

I'm a fan of Wild West magazine, one of the best historical publications you find. I've read a lot of issues over the past 20 or so, I've seen many photos of American Indians of various tribes, and I have never.....and I mean NEVER....seen a photo of an Indian with a dead crow on his head! But remember, folks:


image upload

The guy who made the above cartoon is Marty Two Bulls. He's an Oglala Lakota.

www.m2bulls.com