Tuesday, July 02, 2013

The Lone Ranger Week: "Rustler's Hideout" (October 13, 1949)


The Pete Madden gang is on the loose and wreaking havoc on the frontier, even though Madden himself is incarcerated in jail.  However, his gang abducts young Jim Patrick (Dickie Jones), son of the powerful local rancher, Tom Patrick (Joseph Crehan), and offers to make an exchange: the boy for Madden.

This act of kidnapping infuriates Patrick, and he forms a posse to take on the Madden gang.  He refuses, however, to permit a new settler, Fred Vance (Harry Lauter) join-up because Fred was convicted of cattle-rustling in his last neighborhood, and Patrick feels he is just as bad as the Madden gang.  He refuses to give the man a chance, or to let him prove himself.

The Lone Ranger and Tonto arrive on the scene, and realize that Fred Vance is indeed the very man who can help get Jim released from captivity.  The Lone Ranger also describes how Vance was "convicted on mighty slim evidence" and that his actions now "give him a chance" at redemption.

Vance takes that chance, and with the Lone Ranger's help, gets to prove to his new neighbors that he is an "honest man."  The Lone Ranger and Vance rescue Jim, and return him to his father. They also, at long last, bring down the Madden gang.



This fifth episode of The Lone Ranger is all about second chances, and how even those who have done bad things deserve the benefit of the doubt.  

In this case, Vance proves eminently trustworthy, and by episode's end, Tom, Jim, and the posse have arrived at the Vance homestead to help him and his wife construct their new home.  It's a positive view of mankind, and like the previous episode, a reflection of The Lone Ranger's morality.  He doesn't judge people based on gossip, or even based on a past crime.  Instead, he sees the possibility for redemption as something that every man is owed.


I especially enjoyed the scene in "Rustler's Hideout" in which the Lone Ranger rides into the camp of the Madden gang (at Vasquez Rocks?) and the gang mistakes him for a criminal.  The Lone Ranger answers every question, interrogative and comment with honesty and absolute integrity.  He doesn't ever lie to his enemies.  Instead, they simply interpret his answers as lies.  I love that dynamic.  The Lone Ranger maintains his "white hat" mystique, and the criminals are hoisted by their own petard.

I realize that the movie update of the character (releasing tomorrow...) has a responsibility and duty to speak to our times, today, but I hope the new movie remembers that the Lone Ranger is a man of remarkable moral fiber and clarity, and not either a "campy" joke, or an angsty-broody revenger. 

We'll see...

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