What I watched: The fifth episode of the first season of The Lone Ranger, a kid-oriented Western created by George W. Trendle. This episode starred Clayton Moore as the titular hero and Jay Silverheels as Tonto, with guest appearances by Harry Lauter, Joseph Crehan, Fred Kohler Jr, Dickie Jones, and Kay Morley. This episode was directed by George B. Seitz Jr. and written by Tom Seller. “Legion of Old-Timers” aired on Thursday, October 13 at 7:30 PM on ABC, and is available to watch on YouTube.
What happened: We’re told that the Lone Ranger has been tracking the Madden gang, a group of cattle rustlers, and that the leader of the group has finally been apprehended, at the cost of a young boy named Jim being taken hostage. From here, we meet a young homesteading couple who have acquired a piece of land in the area, but are afraid that the man’s last name will put them under suspicion.
The Ranger and Tonto find the Madden gang’s hideout, but they’re all gone. They decide to lie in wait for the criminals to return. Meanwhile, Fred the farmer is working on his land, building a house. We learn through expository dialogue that they’ve been driven out of the last four places they’ve settled. Must be noisy neighbours. Sheriff Tom, an old dude on a horse, comes up and asks them to join the posse to hunt the Madden gang. Everything goes friendly until the man introduces himself as Fred Vance, apparently the name of a famous rustler. Sheriff Tom doesn’t take very well to this.
The Ranger and Tonto recap what we know, adding that the boy Jim is the son of Tom Patrick, the rash old man from the previous scene and posse leader. Tom tells the sheriff not to let Madden go, as he could kill hundreds in the course of his rustling. The Lone Ranger comes in, and it appears that Tom has heard of him. The Ranger tries to persuade the townsfolks to let him handle things, but they don’t listen and go clamoring out in a big posse.
Meanwhile, back on the ranch, Fred is polishing his gun. The Ranger and Tonto ride up to him, and he begins shooting at them. They play dead, and then grab the man when he comes up to check on him. The Ranger then enlists our pal Fred into the group, knowing supernaturally that he’ an honest man. He, Tonto and Fred head off the posse at the pass and disarm them at gunpoint. Tonto is assigned to watch over the guns. I tell you, he gets all the shit jobs.
The Ranger rides in through the front door, saying he wants to join, while Fred sneaks around back looking to free the hostage. He does this, but not before little Jim calls his captor a “polecat”, apparently a grievous insult. Fred and the bandit do some wrestling on the ground.
Once the gang realizes something us up, they chase after the Ranger, but he gets away on Silver. Everyone shoots their guns at the sky for some reason. We then move back to wrestling on the ground, the other form of Lone Ranger action scene. At some point the original posse have been given their guns back and intercept the gang. The Ranger does a sweet flying takedown on a guy on horseback (20:40). Upon learning that Fred saved his son, Tom welcomes him to the town, and the Ranger promptly ghosts on them.
What I thought: This episode starts, oddly enough, in media res — in fact, some of the story’s pivotal events (specifically the dual captures of Madden and Jim) occur before the episode starts. Perhaps this story was cut down from an earlier film serial or radio drama. In effect, this creates a kind of phony continuity where the ordinary kid viewer might assume that there was a previous episode they missed. We know there wasn’t a “part one” to this story, which makes the rapid set-up all the odder.
Sitting in front of the TV at the same time every week is a learned habit that was not yet familiar (although radio had introduced the format), so perhaps suggesting that something really important had happened the week before was a way of convincing kids to tune in weekly. Such a device could also create a sense of the story being part of a larger universe which the viewer could only catch the occasional glimpse of.
I think the main reason so much of the ostensible plot is cut out of this episode is that it positions Fred’s attempts to prove himself as the crux of the narrative. Lauter, who had just played a bit part in White Heat, would never be much more than a supporting actor in B westerns, but he comes across in this episode as a charismatic future star. (Then again, maybe it’s not hard to look charming next to Clayton Moore.) He is very much the protagonist of this episode, with the Ranger in a supporting role.
It’s never quite clear whether Fred committed the crimes he’s accused of or not. What is clear is that the posse provides a means to establish his moral character — even if it is just a two-man posse. The posse, in reality a crude and usually racist institution that developed in place of strong central authority, became in the Western genre a kind of moral crucible. To join the posse means being willing to put yourself at risk in order to do the right thing. In a broader sense, the ability of a community to form a posse suggests their ability to create a society together out of shared moral order. One of my favourite Westerns, High Noon, wrings a lot of mileage and bleak political statements out of this image of the posse.
In a punitive society, morality is best demonstrated by the ability and willingness to punish other wrongdoers. So Fred proves himself by physically punishing the threat to the community’s economic livelihood. Ironically, he has to actually confront and detain the posse to do so. Here, we see the collective heroism of the posse narrative stifled by the inherent individualism of the masked-hero genre to which The Lone Ranger belongs. In the kind of contortion that would become commonplace in American action movies and television, Fred joins a moral community by rebelling against it. There is also perhaps the sense of law enforcement as a profession emerging, replacing community efforts with specialized individuals. After all, our hero is a Texas Ranger.
And hey, Fred has a wife! Kay Morley is the first woman to appear in The Lone Ranger. She doesn’t really have much to do. Honestly, the fact that it took this long is pretty remarkable, but perhaps not surprising. The Old West was a primarily male society — and so, more importantly, was the land of young boy’s imaginations.
Coming up next: Ed Wynn is here to help young women feel bad about their bodies!
The Eternal Couch Potato 