What I watched: The eighteenth 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 John Eldredge, Greta Granstedt, Gene Reynolds and Marshall Bradford. (If your first name is Marshall, you have to be cast as the sheriff, right?). This episode was directed by George Archainbaud and written by Polly James. “Outlaw Town” aired on Thursday, January 12, 1950 at 7:30 PM on ABC, and is available to watch on DailyMotion.
What happened: We’re back on the Wells Fargo beat, as an old delivery man is getting robbed at gunpoint. The bandit only wants exactly $5000, presumably because he needs to pay two months’ rent in Toronto. He rides away, and the sheriff (Bradford) realizes that the amount of money the bandit, a criminal named Jim Andrews (Reynolds), took was the same as the amount on his head. From this, they decide that he’s headed to Outlaw Town.
The sheriffs meet up with the Lone Ranger and fill us in on the details: a nearby town, ran by a man named Burke (Eldredge), is full of wanted criminals who are now beyond the reach of the law. The Ranger decides that he can capture Andrews anyway. In town, Andrews hands over the money to Burke. Burke’s wife Edith (Granstedt) is upset at what she thinks her husband is going to make Andrews do.
The Ranger rides into Outlaw Town and meets with Burke. He poses as a criminal wanting refuge, and Burke explains the rules: in exchange for protection, he takes 50% of what the outlaws make. The Ranger pays him $5000 and says he’s planning to rob a Wells Fargo stage tomorrow. Meanwhile, Andrews is relating his tragic backstory to Edith, and how he wants to make a lot of money for his love Ruth.
Tonto drops by to confirm that they’re setting up an ambush to catch the robbers. But it turns out that Edith, the most competent villain in the history of this show, was listening in on him. But she’s not really a villain: she just wants the Ranger and Tonto to help Andrews, who she sees as a son, go straight. She even takes the money that the Ranger and Andrews paid. Burke then comes in, thinking that the Ranger is trying to steal his money.
With the Ranger tied up, Burke leaves with his wife, telling her that they’re going shopping. (Look, sometimes you just want to stop by the food court. I get it.) In reality, he’s taking Andrews and another robber to Watkinsville to do some stealing. Tonto watches on with confusion, then sneaks back to Outlaw Town to jump Burke’s goon and free the Ranger. You know, there are some weeks where I swear Tonto is the real hero.
At Watkinsville, the robbery is all set to go, but Edith delays things by making small talk. She tries to warn the sheriff, and in the process gets him shot. Okay Mrs. Burke, you are a worthy inductee into the Lone Rangers Birds of Prey. The Ranger pounces and arrests Burke. After a quick cut, everything is settled, and the old lady is now in charge of the former Outlaw Town. The Ranger says that he’s convinced Andrews to go straight, presumably through beating. And with that, he takes off again.
What I thought: For such a macho, boys-only adventure series (there were no women at all for the first several episodes), The Lone Ranger has actually featured some decent female characters recently. Perhaps this is because of woman writers like Doris Schroeder and this episode’s Polly James. Because I have to make my own fun on here, I’ve dubbed these characters the Lone Rangers Birds of Prey –women like Cannonball McKay or Old Joe’s sister, who manage to momentarily put the masculine heroes and villains on the back foot. We have another introduction to this hallowed team in this episode with Mrs. Burke, who ends up secretly driving the entire plot.
Some scholars and analysts have argued that, despite having almost no religious content, The Lone Ranger is a deeply Christian series. George W. Trendle, a staunch Republican, had at one point wanted to be a minister, and it’s possible that he saw this series as a realization of his goal — an actual reverend once described The Lone Ranger as “secular Bible stories.” There’s enough evidence to describe the Ranger himself as a Christ figure: he comes back from death in the first episode, rides a white horse like Jesus in Revelations, and has an almost-divine ability to appear only when needed. I’m not sure if Trendle would have consciously drawn such a comparison — if nothing else, it’s a little idolatrous — but it’s clear that mainline Protestant morality guides the series.
This is nowhere more true in the series’s persistent belief in redemption. In this episode, Andrews basically does nothing but bad-guy stuff, but he expresses a desire to become good — and, in Protestantism, it is this desire for redemption that is most important. Edith Burke is heroic because she recognizes this quality in him and nurtures it. The bible is never mentioned, but she and the Ranger himself act as missionaries, converting lost souls to the righteous cause. This plotline almost resembles nineteenth-century women’s fiction with its fixation on spiritual redemption.
By contrast, the entire concept of an “outlaw town” could be read as a Christian parody of secular society, a place where vice isn’t punished and the most powerful profit off it. Indeed, it’s almost impossible not to read this idea as fundamentally metaphorical, because it doesn’t make much literal sense. If everyone in the town is an outlaw, who sweeps the floors and cleans the toilets? Isn’t 50% a big cut just for providing a safehouse? And isn’t the whole premise of the series that the law has a hard time punishing bandits no matter where they lay their head?
Whatever, it’s a kid’s show. If anything, they don’t do enough with the whole Outlaw Town setting. We need to see the Ranger and Tonto brawling their way through a whole town full of ne’er do-wells, from the rustlers to the evil librarians. Actually, if anyone still cared about The Lone Ranger as a property, that might make for a good Arkham-style video game.
Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, Christianity. To a sense, it’s difficult to talk about how much religion shapes pop culture because it’s difficult to separate Christianity and much of American “secular” morality. A religious story with the trademarks filed off doesn’t look all that different from contemporary pop culture. Perhaps the only thing we’ve lost is one of the more positive Christian concepts, that of redemption.
Coming up next: Ed Wynn has a new sponsor and hopefully some new jokes.
The Eternal Couch Potato 