Shout! Factory's new Blu-ray rectifies the latter, allowing the curious to see it properly presented in its correct widescreen format and a decent 1080p transfer.

The film, no doubt, was prompted directly by the huge success of Superman (1978). That movie's ingenious tag line, prominent in all early advertising was, "You will believe a man can fly." This, of course, implied dazzling special effects light years ahead of the rudimentary opticals of earlier Superman serials and the ‘50s TV show, but the line really meant two things at once. "You will believe a man can fly" also hinted at a movie that would take its audience back to their less critical youth, when suspension of disbelief came easily, and before we all became too hip and cynical to embrace unimpeachably noble heroes.

Against all odds the movie worked, partly because director Richard Donner and others fully embraced this approach - Richard Lester, director of the first two Superman sequels, did not, which is the main reason they're so terrible - creating a lushly romantic, if modern, reinterpretation of this Great American Myth. Christopher Reeve, as Superman, brought to the role a perfect combination of unblinking sincerity and incredible charm.

The Legend of the Lone Ranger shares this same attitude* but in its execution makes several major bad choices along the way, resulting in a film with some genuinely majestic elements constantly undone by ruinously bad ones.

Like Superman (1978), and myriad superhero movies that followed, The Legend of the Lone Ranger is an origin story, tracing the birth of the famous Western hero and detailing the hows and whys of such iconic elements as the Lone Ranger's use of silver bullets, his relationship with the Indian Tonto, and so forth.

The familiar story, dating back to the character's birth as a 1933 radio show originating out of WXYZ in Detroit, goes like this: John Reid (Klinton Spilsbury) and his Texas Ranger brother, Captain Dan Reid (John Bennett Perry), along with fellow rangers, are caught in an ambush staged by rogue Major Bartholomew "Butch" Cavendish (Christopher Lloyd). The rangers are wiped out, but John survives and is nursed backed to health by Tonto (Michael Horse), John's childhood friend.

Determined to avenge the death of his last surviving relative, John dons a black mask and becomes The Lone Ranger, and with Tonto's help gradually uncovers Cavendish's plot to kidnap U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant (Jason Robards) and demand sovereignty to East Texas in exchange for the president's safe return.

At the time of its release, some resented the shabby treatment by the film's producers of Clayton Moore, star of the hugely popular '50s TV series. The creators of The Lone Ranger unwisely sued the 65-year-old Moore, obtaining a court order preventing the much-loved actor from wearing his black mask during personal appearances. (Like Roy Rogers and William "Hopalong Cassidy" Boyd, Moore all but became the character he had once played.) It was a public relations disaster.

Contrastingly, there was considerable controversy surrounding neophyte star Klinton Spilsbury, whose first and last film this was, and whose on-set antics, apparently including fighting with crewmembers and being uncooperative and combative throughout, won him few friends. Those unaware of the film's controversies probably won't notice anything wrong with Spilsbury's performance, or the fact that he is dubbed throughout by actor James Keach. Physically he's fine, looks the part, and he moves well, but neither he nor the somewhat better Michael Horse have any of the charisma or chemistry Moore and Jay Silverheels (the TV show's Tonto) enjoyed. After the film Spilsbury fell off the radar completely and his whereabouts remained a source of much wild speculation. The mind-blowingly wrong-headed Johnny Depp "reboot" of The Lone Ranger (2013) renewed some minor interest in Spilsbury, who was discovered working as a photographer in Los Angeles.

The movie itself isn't too terrible. The script has enormous potential, particularly in the way it reassesses the relationship between Reid and Tonto with a century of hindsight on Native American relations. Unfortunately, nothing in the film is explored with any depth and the characters, all of them, are like cardboard. Production-wise the film is pretty handsome. There's some nice Monument Valley scenery, and the use of familiar if used-to-death locations like Vasquez Rocks and Red Rock Canyon perhaps unintentionally adds an air of nostalgia. The stunts and action set pieces occasionally are well done.

Even worse than Spilsbury's limitations as an actor is the film's music. Three components are constantly at odds with one another. The William Tell Overture dominates the second-half of the film, heard several times too many, while John Barry's original score doesn't stylistically mesh with Rossini at all. Barry's music "won" a Golden Raspberry Award as the year's Worst Musical Score, ironic considering that some of Barry's cues resemble his celebrated, Oscar-winning score for Dances with Wolves (1990).

The clash of Barry and Rossini might have been bearable if not for that third and worst musical component, the truly odious use of country singer Merle Haggard, who performs a good ‘ol boy, ballad-style history of the Lone Ranger written by Dean Pritchford (Footloose), sung throughout the picture. It's god-awful, far worse than anything else about the film: "One thing about that Cavendish," Haggard yammers, unrhythmically, "He knew how to set a trap. And he finished off the rangers that day in Byrant's Gap." And, if you ask me, that's a load of claptrap, you sap.

Video & Audio

Filmed in 2.35:1 Panavision by László Kovács, The Legend of the Lone Ranger, at last, gets a presentation approximating the original theatrical version, a presentation not really seen anywhere in nearly 35 years. The wide format helps the compositions enormously compared to the awful DVD version, though the heavy use of gauzy filters, the same kind of thing employed somewhat better on Superman, tends to overwhelm: everything is soft and super-grainy. (One imagines if DNR were applied, there would be nothing left of the image.) Still, it's a big improvement. The DTS-HD Master Audio is 2.0 mono, disappointing for a big-budget release; apparently the 1981 theatrical version was Dolby mono only, though 70mm prints, if any were made, might have been remixed for 6-track stereo. The disc is Region A encoded.

Extra Features

The lone supplement is a good one: the film's original trailer. For a movie widely regarded as awful, this is one of the best trailers ever done. It really sells the film as something majestic and full of heart-stopping excitement. If only the movie had been as good as that coming attractions trailer.

Parting Thoughts

For this reviewer, mainstream Hollywood movies (and TV shows), particularly the current wave of superhero movies, are relentlessly, depressingly smug, cynical, emotionally detached, and ooze with a most unappealing pseudo-hipness. The industry no longer seems capable of backing truly noble heroes, which is the basis not only of the Lone Ranger's appeal, but also most other iconic 20th century characters, from Tarzan to Superman - and the reason recent films about these types of fictional heroes always fail, artistically and usually commercially. Had The Legend of the Lone Ranger been the movie it should have been, the direction the industry took during the 1980s might have been quite different. Rent it.

* Oddly enough, the filmmakers would have done well to look to an excellent 1960s series of West German-produced, filmed-in-Yugoslavia Westerns chronicling the adventures of German novelist Karl May's Winnetou and Old Shatterhand for inspiration. These movies are almost exactly what The Legend of the Lone Ranger would have/should have resembled if done right.

　 Stuart Galbraith IV is the Kyoto-based film historian and publisher-editor of World Cinema Paradise. His credits include film history books, DVD and Blu-ray audio commentaries and special features.