Les justiciers du Far-West

It never ceases to amaze me the historical variations that our movies, but especially those old time serials would have us believe. This one has Texas out of the Civil War when in fact General Richard Taylor's army there was the last to surrender. In any event Reconstruction has come to Texas and Abraham Lincoln has started it.

Frank McGlyn is once again Abraham Lincoln has appointed a tax collector for the reconquered Texas. But bandit Stanley Andrews has hit upon a real moneymaker of a scheme. He captures and kills the real tax collector and assumes his identity. Then the bandits start collecting in earnest.

When Andrews massacres a group of reconstituted Texas Rangers the story of how Tonto played by Chief Thundercloud rescues the lone survivor comes into play. The gimmick here though is that there are five guys any one of them could be the real Lone Ranger.

In the television series the Ranger often dropped the white outfit and the mask and used disguises as an undercover method of law enforcement. He was primarily masked though. Here he walks around like Don Diego de la Vega, but when trouble comes he dons the mask more like in the Zorro tradition. And we never see Tonto in the serial except when he's riding with the Ranger.

Not till the last chapter do we learn who the Lone Ranger is. The others keep getting themselves killed and they are eliminated one by one. Like overturning the shells at a carnival sideshow to find the elusive pea.

The assassination of Lincoln is worked in as George Cleveland is sent to investigate the Texas situation as to why there still is so much unrest in Texas. His mission gets good and compromised by John Wilkes Booth.

I saw an abbreviated version of the serial and it's as silly as most of those serials back in the day were. I'll take my Lone Ranger straightforward thank you.

."The Lone Ranger"....with Lee Powell starring along with other "Rangers"& ,you do not know who really is the masked man, until the final chapter...! But there are great production sequences of action and suspense...throughout each episode. Republic Pictures Studio knew how to make the Serials that moved fast and offered realistic action. This 15-minute super-serial has been "lost" until now, and hard-core fan-collectors could only hope that a good original print could be found and offered to the public on Video.. now if only it could be colorized...and done correctly! But... It's a winner the way it still is today!

This was a good serial about a sheriff of the old west getting shot and becoming The Lone Ranger, a fighter of evil.

The picture quality wasnt that great but it was watchable, and there was even some WWE movies in there before WWE. There was a John Cena Attitude Adjustment and a Randy Orton RKO.

The story wasnt as exciting as it would have been in the 30's but it was pretty decent.

This is simply the best serial ever made and it's a crying shame that the original print has been lost (or destroyed as some claim). It was filmed at Lone Pine, Ca., the perfect location for the perfect serial. The 1940 condensation "Hi Yo Silver" is too short, leaving out many key elements, but for dyed in the wool fans of the original its better than nothing.

My copy of the serial is pretty ragged, with Spanish subtitles, but I understand is the only copy available. Too bad. This serial is what all serials should be and seldom are.

Contrary to what my friend from Italy thinks, the Lone Ranger is not a bank official. He calls him the Loan Arranger. Sorry about that. This is a fairly good serial installment on the origin of the Lone Ranger. Although I prefer the TV version, this one is not too bad. I particularly liked the savage methodology of the antagonist, who mercilessly kills anyone who stands in his way. This type of behavior was not possible to be seen on the TV show, where everyone was "winged" (shot in the shoulder) I believe the Lone Ranger and Tonto must have been winged a dozen times or so. Fun to watch.