|
Post by tonebone on Sept 16, 2021 15:55:26 GMT -5
I know that technically, The Lone Ranger started as a radio show, and it's popularity grew as a tv show, and its comics were more of a side-note, but I LOVED the Legend of the Lone Ranger movie from the 80's. I felt like it was a note-perfect translation of the character. I loved the music, the acting (Christopher Lloyd as Butch Cavendish? Jason Robards as Grant? YES.), the setting, the relationship between Reid and Tonto. It was great. I was crushed when it was a box-office BOMB. No sequels, no tv series... nothing.
|
|
|
Post by MDG on Sept 16, 2021 16:19:17 GMT -5
I know that technically, The Lone Ranger started as a radio show, and it's popularity grew as a tv show, and its comics were more of a side-note, but I LOVED the Legend of the Lone Ranger movie from the 80's. I felt like it was a note-perfect translation of the character. I loved the music, the acting (Christopher Lloyd as Butch Cavendish? Jason Robards as Grant? YES.), the setting, the relationship between Reid and Tonto. It was great. I was crushed when it was a box-office BOMB. No sequels, no tv series... nothing. Part of the problem was massive bad publicity when the producers threatened to sue Clayton Moore if he continued to do personal appearances as the Lone Ranger.
|
|
|
Post by brutalis on Sept 17, 2021 4:05:59 GMT -5
Where's the rest of the original serial's love? Phantom, Mandrake, Congo Bill, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Dick Tracy, Blackhawk and Spy Smasher?
|
|
|
Post by Graphic Autist on Sept 17, 2021 7:47:52 GMT -5
Where's the rest of the original serial's love? Phantom, Mandrake, Congo Bill, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Dick Tracy, Blackhawk and Spy Smasher? I never knew there was a Blackhawk serial…
|
|
|
Post by tonebone on Sept 17, 2021 10:05:38 GMT -5
Where's the rest of the original serial's love? Phantom, Mandrake, Congo Bill, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Dick Tracy, Blackhawk and Spy Smasher? My local tv station would show entire serials on Saturday afternoons. I favored Flash over Buck in comics, but the Buck Rogers serial was far superior to Flash. I must've watched it 20 times. Don't forget Batman, Superman, Captain America, and Captain Marvel (a really great serial).
|
|
|
Post by tonebone on Sept 17, 2021 10:10:27 GMT -5
I know that technically, The Lone Ranger started as a radio show, and it's popularity grew as a tv show, and its comics were more of a side-note, but I LOVED the Legend of the Lone Ranger movie from the 80's. I felt like it was a note-perfect translation of the character. I loved the music, the acting (Christopher Lloyd as Butch Cavendish? Jason Robards as Grant? YES.), the setting, the relationship between Reid and Tonto. It was great. I was crushed when it was a box-office BOMB. No sequels, no tv series... nothing. Part of the problem was massive bad publicity when the producers threatened to sue Clayton Moore if he continued to do personal appearances as the Lone Ranger. Yeah, they sued him because they thought him appearing at used car lot openings would somehow damage the character of The Lone Ranger, while they were preparing to release their movie. It backfired in a big way, as all of the major news networks picked up the story, and it was prominently featured on Real People, which was the hightes rated show at the time. It really soured people on the movie, which was on shakey ground to start with.
|
|
|
Post by Prince Hal on Sept 17, 2021 10:39:49 GMT -5
Re: The Legend of the Lone Ranger : Klinton Spilsbury, the unknown, inexperienced actor chosen to play the LR, was also a big part of the problem, aa you'll see here: ew.com/article/2013/07/02/lone-ranger-klinton-spilsbury/Disney's attempt to Bruckheimer the Lone Ranger franchise, à la Pirates, was also a mess. Not every legend or myth needs to hit the viewer over the head with a CGI-laden, explosion-filled hammer and be cursed with a wise-ass protagonist. The Lone Ranger is more Randolph Scott than Bruce Willis: serious, laconic, loyal, and resourceful. In short, someone not to be f*cked with.
|
|
|
Post by profh0011 on Sept 17, 2021 13:05:07 GMT -5
Where's the rest of the original serial's love? Phantom, Mandrake, Congo Bill, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Dick Tracy, Blackhawk and Spy Smasher? When I was growing up, there were only 4 serials ever shown on Philly stations, and not usually at the same time (or in the right order)-- the 3 Flash Gordons and the 1 Buck Rogers, all with Buster Crabbe.
I used to wonder, WHY doesn't somebody get all these other serials (there seemed to be countless other ones), set aside a regular time slot, and run 5 chapters a week (M-F-- to me, weekends should always be separate from weekdays). You could run a "show" like that for YEARS without ever running the same serial twice!
Well, in the last few years, I've started doing that myself, thanks to Youtube. Usually, with breakfast, I'll watch one chapter of something a day, and I've managed to see quite a few serials I never saw before this way.
THE GREEN HORNET, THE GREEN HORNET STRIKES AGAIN, SPY SMASHER, CAPTAIN MARVEL, THE PHANTOM, THE SPIDER'S WEB, all of these have been fabulous!!
I've seen the 4 DICK TRACY serials, they're not bad, though they're not exactly consistent from one to another. (I prefer the later 4 feature fims.)
MANDRAKE was severely disappointing. I grew up reading MANDRAKE in the papers far more than I ever did comic-books (until I was in my teens), and this thing seemed to get everything wrong. Warren Hull, who was fabulous as both Britt Reid and Richard Wentworth, was totally miscast as Mandrake. He looked nothing like him, he was clean-shaven, he had a blonde girlfriend, he had a Hawaiian sidekick whose name was pronounced "Luh-THARR", and I don't believe he ever once used hypnotism. WTF?
I also saw an unsold MANDRAKE tv-pilot from the early 50s that got EVERYTHING right... making it a real shame the show didn't sell.
I've watched a few others recently that were mixed bags. Some of them, my main problem is it feels like the stories would have worked much better as feature films than as serials where ONE plot is painfully stretched and padded out to 15 chapters, so by halfway thru, it's become interminable. JUNGLE GIRL (1941) was one of those, JACK ARMSTRONG THE ALL-AMERICAN BOY was another.
2 of my favorites I got on videotape many years ago: CAPTAIN AMERICA and BATMAN. Both benefit from knowing who the villain is right from the start (I find "mystery villains" whose identity you don't learn until the last 2 minutes of chapter 15 unbearable). CAPTAIN AMERICA, crazy enough, started life as a MR. SCARLET serial, but the studio had it re-written at the last minute. Jack Kirby had worked on both comics, and the resulting serial actually does feel like a Kirby series. Dynamic action, lots of explosions, and a TOUGH girl sidekick who's fearless and packs a rod. Lionel Atwill as the main villain was probably never more of a bastard! I bet he had fun making that one.
One of the craziest things I've seen was KING OF THE ROCKETMEN and its 3 sequels-- of sorts. They did 4 of these things, but the continuity between EACH sequel is so disconnected, I began to wonder if the produers or writers were on drugs or something.
|
|
|
Post by profh0011 on Sept 17, 2021 13:16:22 GMT -5
I saw that in a theatre when it came out. I tend to lump it together with other such misguided atrocities as...
DOC SAVAGE THE MAN OF BRONZE THE FIENDISH PLOT OF DR. FU MANCHU CHARLIE CHAN AND THE CURSE OF THE DRAGON QUEEN TARZAN THE APE MAN (directed by John Derek) THE WILD WILD WEST REVISTED and MORE WILD WILD WEST (tv-movies) THE RETURN OF MAXWELL SMART (alias THE NUDE BOMB) ...and, I hate to say it, but, I will... STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE
The best thing I can say about LEGEND OF THE LONE RANGER is, it's nowhere near as bad as the recent LONE RANGER film.
Dino's FLASH GORDON, by rights, belongs on this list... except... this one somehow actually WORKS.
Glen Larson's BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY also seems like it should be on this list... I mean, they changed so much it's hardly recognizable as the same character or series at all. And yet... somehow... it works. Well, season 1, anyway. Season 2 was a total ABORTION. How the HELL do you screw up something that completely that was working already?
|
|
|
Post by String on Sept 17, 2021 13:19:47 GMT -5
I know that technically, The Lone Ranger started as a radio show, and it's popularity grew as a tv show, and its comics were more of a side-note, but I LOVED the Legend of the Lone Ranger movie from the 80's. I felt like it was a note-perfect translation of the character. I loved the music, the acting (Christopher Lloyd as Butch Cavendish? Jason Robards as Grant? YES.), the setting, the relationship between Reid and Tonto. It was great. I was crushed when it was a box-office BOMB. No sequels, no tv series... nothing. So far, you're two-for-two in reminding me of films from my youth. However, in this case, I have fonder memories of this one. Y'see, I've never watched that much of the Lone Ranger TV show with Moore even to this day. Sure, back in the day, my local TV stations ran the usual selection of TV Westerns, from Gunsmoke to Bonaza, Big Valley, Rawhide, Laramie. Both my parents loved westerns and some of my fondest memories as a kid of watching TV with my dad was when we'd watch Gunsmoke, Wild Wild West and the Cisco Kid together. Yet for some reason, the Lone Ranger was never part of the airing schedule. So when this film came out, it was really my first full exposure to the character and his mythos. While I don't remember much of what happened in it (other than his being part of a massacre of Texas Rangers), I do remember liking the film. It's stuck with me (and frankly I'd rather watch this one than the Depp film). I don't know if it's ever been released on DVD or such but luckily enough, now that you've reminded me, I've found it available on Amazon Prime's service. Also, I didn't know any of that background stuff from that EW article you provided, Prince Hal, thanks, very interesting (especially that his voice was dubbed over, wow).
|
|
|
Post by String on Sept 17, 2021 13:25:25 GMT -5
Glen Larson's BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY also seems like it should be on this list... I mean, they changed so much it's hardly recognizable as the same character or series at all. And yet... somehow... it works. Well, season 1, anyway. Season 2 was a total ABORTION. How the HELL do you screw up something that completely that was working already?
Two best things about that entire run of the show:
|
|
|
Post by profh0011 on Sept 17, 2021 13:27:10 GMT -5
When I was a kid, in the 60s, I had exposure to 4 different incarnations of THE LONE RANGER...
The 50s TV show with Clayton Moore (including the odd episodes when they got John Hart from the radio show to fill in due to a contract dispute)
The 1967 Saturday morning cartoons (which had a psychedelic color scheme and WILD WILD WEST-style villains)
a 78-RPM record "The Story of Dan Reed" which retold his origin and how he was reunited with his nephew
and, one comic-book!
In the 70s, a local radio station got into running "old time radio", including episodes of THE LONE RANGER. I'm sure I heard a few of those, but somehow they didn't make as much of an impact on me as THE SHADOW, THE GREEN HORNET, JACK BENNY and others. I do recall Dad making a big deal about actor Brace Beemer having "a voice like COLD STEEL!"
|
|
|
Post by profh0011 on Sept 17, 2021 13:51:46 GMT -5
To me, nobody does this better than Arturo Toscanini!
|
|
|
Post by tarkintino on Sept 17, 2021 14:22:48 GMT -5
The Adventures of Captain Marvel was the gold standard of serials based on superhero comics, and everything else fell short in some way, such as the 1943 Batman serial, which was good, but its lack of budget, which influenced its lack of detail from the comics--made it a hit and miss serial.
The Captain America serial was just terrible, with poor casting, total character changes, no Bucky, no shield...really? Republic had access to circular prop shields for historical films, and how much would it have cost to mask off a shield and paint some stripes? Or just make a cheap wood shield for appearance's sake?
|
|