What I watched: The twelfth 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 Carol Thurston, Arthur Franz, Keith Richards (not the singer) and Francis McDonald.. This episode was directed by George Archainbaud and written by Andre Lamb. “Finders Keepers” aired on Thursday, December 8, 1949 at 7:30 PM on ABC, and is available to watch on YouTube.
What happened: A headscarf-wearing woman, Beata (Thurston), is accustomed by two men who want to know if she’s seen a Nat Parker. They let her go, and describe her as one of the “gypsy women” that they should have “gotten rid of.” Elsewhere, the Lone Ranger and Tonto arrive in town, and meet with a Catholic priest in full garb. The priest says that a man named Nat Parker is about to get out of jail, but is in danger of going right back in, as he’s looking for vengeance against the two men who did him wrong. You know, just like the last episode.
Our villainous duo of Crowley (Richards) and Tanner (McDonald) hide out on a high cliff, preparing to ambush Parker as he goes into the imaginatively-named Desert City. When the Ranger and Tonto come by, they decide to shoot at them too, just for kicks I suppose. This leads to one of the series’ static gunfights where everybody misses. At some point a fifth man joins in the battle, also shooting at the baddies. The bad guys flee, and our heroes give chase, but ultimately lose them. When they go back to talk to the man who helped them, he denies having any involvement — but the Ranger identifies him as Parker (Franz).
Parker sneaks into the seemingly ruined Desert City. He finds Beata, and they embrace. She wants to get married, but he wants to do the whole vengeance thing first. He’s set on getting back his money, but Beata says that she’s hidden it somewhere, and hopes that he could give it back to its rightful owners. Meanwhile, the Ranger and Tonto run into Crawley and Tanner, who tell them to get away from the ghost town.
Our heroes stumble across the gypsy (is it okay to use that term? They certainly don’t have much to do with any real-life Roma group) camp. Beata is with an old guy who tells her to trust the Ranger because he has silver bullets. She asks them to help stop Nat from getting himself killed. The Ranger agrees, but wants to know where the money is. After some squabbling, she hands over the money to him. Way to let yourself get swindled, lady.
Back in the town, the gunfight is already in progress. The Ranger and Tanner (or maybe it was Crawley) have another unproductive shoot-out. Our hero gets away and finds Nat shooting out a window. Parker grabs the money, while the Ranger tries to convince him to go straight. He opens up once the masked man, and Nat swears that Crawley and Tanner are the ones who forced the violent parts of their crime.
Outside, Crawley and Tanner have taken Beata hostage, and order Nat to give them the money. He eventually does what they say, but the Ranger completely ignores hostage-taking etiquette by shooting at them anyway. They flee, and there’s another chase scene. The Ranger manages to get Crawley off his horse and punches him out, before revealing that it was only newspaper in the supposed bundle of cash. The sheriff comes in to take the money back to the bank, which seems like a dubious proposition when you consider the track record of sheriffs on this series. Everything is settled, I guess, and the Ranger rides off.
What I thought: “Finders Keepers” has most of the story beats that have become familiar in The Lone Ranger. We have the good man just out of prison, his scheming former partners, and things may not be what they seem. (You could probably put together a supercut of Clayton Moore saying “I don’t know, but…” the size of an episode.) And of course, we have our heroes sticking their nose into a private dispute, and the Ranger ultimately solving it with a moment of trickery. It’s not so much a formula as it is a mania.
There are a few differences between this episode and past renditions of this plot, like “Return of the Convict.” For one thing, this time the outlaw is actually guilty, and not immediately a good guy. Indeed, it’s not at all clear why the Ranger and Tonto should take an interest in this petty criminal. But this ends up giving the episode an actual character arc: Nat has to choose between his greed and his love for Viana, and in the process becomes a better person. It’s an overdetermined redemption story, but it’s a story nonetheless.
From a formalist perspective, this repetition is perhaps not a bad thing. 1940s audiences, especially children, were perhaps not as fixated on novelty as contemporary ones. Doing the same story over and over again allowed for a gradual movement towards perfection. Howard Hawks essentially made the same Western movie again and again, but the films were always successful, and he is today remembered as an auteur of the genre. George Archainbaud is no Howard Hawks, but we can see a refinement of this plot from previous installments: there’s more action throughout, as well as an internal conflict driving our central story.
Also, it may just be me, but there’s an oddly European feel to this story. We have a Catholic priest and a wandering band of gypsies, things which probably existed in the old West, but are more closely associated with European folk tales. Even the distinctly Western elements feel even more artificial than usual: Desert City is almost literally an empty soundstage. As a result, the episode comes off as a before-its-time spaghetti Western.
Dodgers score..
Scripts were swapped around and rewritten between shows a lot in this era, so maybe this was a spooky Suspense story that ended up on Trendle’s desk instead. Or maybe I’m reading too much into a few characters, and the Ranger writes were just reaching outside the usual generic palette for inspiration. If so, they could certainly stand to do more of said borrowing. There are 200+ episodes to go, so they’re going to need a few more plots.
Coming up next:Speaking of repeating yourself, I’m going to complain about Ed Wynn again.
The Eternal Couch Potato 