@ossobuco,
I have three kinds of Indian, but I would never portray an authentic Indian because of that. On the other hand, I have enjoyed many films in which the Indians were anything but.
@edgarblythe,
When I was a kid my brothers and I would go to the movies on Saturday afternoons. There always seemed to be westerns showing. I could never work out why the Indians were 'the baddies' and my favourite films were those that had Indians as 'good guys'. Tonto, Chingachgook (? spelling) were the best! (And, of course, a few years later, Mingo on TV.)
There were plenty of Lone Ranger/Tonto jokes doing the rounds, but the one that always stuck in my mind was the one where the Lone Ranger and Tonto were out on the plains with no cover in sight when suddenly Tonto pointed at a dust cloud whirling towards them some distance away. 'You have the eyes of an eagle, Tonto, what do you think it is?' Tonto looked at the dust cloud and answered - 'It is a huge war party of Indian braves, Kemosabe, and they mean business!' As the attackers got closer, whooping and yelping, the LR leaned across and placed a hand on Tonto's arm. 'Well, my friend, it looks as though we are really in trouble this time.' Shaking off the gesture Tonto replied - 'What do you mean "We" white-eyes?'
I could never work out how Michael Pate got to play Indians in so many films.
It seemed odd that an Aussie actor had so many of these roles. Surely, I used to think, there are some real Indians left who would be better.
Brace Beemer was also always the Lone Ranger to me--heard him on the radio, and my family were late adopters, so we didn't get a TV while he was on TV.
The radio series was produced at WXYZ in Detroit, which is what I listened to it on, and they also did Sgt. Preston of the Northwest Mounted Police, and the Green Hornet. the same people did the Ranger and the Hornet, and they were connected in the back story (a connection which somehow disappeared in the recent "Green Hornet" movie).
Dan Reid was the Lone Ranger's nephew, and the only person other than Tonto who knew who the LR really was (his uncle). Dan was in school back east and would come out on vacations to help catch the bad guys. When the West was Won and the Lone Ranger retired (or whatev er he did then), Dan went back east and started a hugely successful newspaperm which he passed on to his playboy son, Bret (or perhaps Britt) Reid, playboy to the world, but the scourge of crime to the underworld, the Green Hornet. So the Green Hornet was the Lone Ranger's grand-nephew, in the family business of covert law enforcement.
@MontereyJack,
Yeah, I even remember Dan's horse was named Victor. One other recurring character was the old miner, who provided the silver for the bullets.
@ragnel,
Who was it, Jeff Chandler, played Geronimo (maybe it was Cochise)? It never made sense to me either. I think big name stars wanted to be the Indians, because those were the colorful ones, the parts that were fun to play. The whites were mostly weak characters, all but the hero, who always knew the Indians and always went to their camp to negotiate the peace (after beating up at least one Indian and sparing his life).
@edgarblythe,
since the Lone RAnger was so campy (I thought the whole thing sucked as a kid until Leslie Nielson did it for fun in some skit). I think Javier Bardem should play Tonto as sort pof a dark character who is always slitting bad guys throats which wuld piss off the Lone RAnger because Javier just doesnt "get it" and Lone Ranger is trying to make Tonto a more civilized man.
Javier's Tonto is a quiet man of deep resolve and honors . Its just that he has a short fuse when it comes to bad guys and kille on forst offenses.
I never got why Lone Rnger used silver bullets. I never saw any werewolves in his show.(Although I think that would be a very cool idea to have him sorta like van Helsing on the path of a platoon of Civil War werewolves that have been raiding the border country of KAnsas and Missouri) I have to work on this part more.
Lone Ranger needs to drop his sexual ambiguity and just ":comeout". That was, as his character matures in the movie he could diplay his increasingly flamboyant duds. Now Johny Depp could give Lone RAnger makeup lessons as they sat around the campfire braiding each others hair.
NO NO NO NO, As Lone RAnger becomes increasingly gay in the movie, Javier Bardem (Who should really play Tonto) would become increasingly confused about his partners evolving speech patterns and dress. This drives BArdem further off his planks and sends him into uncontrolled bloody ventures where he takes out his own ambiguity on hapless small time bad guys.
Of course , this has sorta been done before in "Zorro, the Gay Blade". I, however, would wish to not have any teeny bit of comedic theme in this movie. Lone RAnger and Tonto wouldbe tragic studies of a forbidden lifestyle in the old west.
AND, people would not relly respect him and would be repulsed by him which send s Tonto into even greater bloody interludes.
Ill write that up and send it in to Disney. Its a weiner
@farmerman,
Im thinking that Tonto, as he gets increasingly violent (Hes a nephew of Kwana PArker who taught Tonto everything), Tonto is forever collecting scalps. Everywhere Lone Ranger looks, theres scalps . one RAnger has a several "Confrontation" sessions with Tonto (Bardem) who promises not to collect scalps but always, when the moments arrive , for him to show how he is becoming civilized, he regresses and goes for the scalp.
This can be tha backs tory where Tontos obsession with scalps must be dealt with as a character flaw that sets up the ultimate tragedy of the movie.
Call the Academy
I think it might be a go, if we allow aliens from the future to chase bad guys through a time hole and Tonto one by one slits all their throats. Then he gives the aliens an honorary loin cloth.
My take on the silver bullets - the Ranger used them the way Paladin used his business cards, handing them around as he prepared to ply his trade.
The first public appearance of The Lone Ranger. It was Brace Beemer and his personal Horse, Silver's Pride. THey had expected a crowd of 40,000, but 70,000 showed up.
For a history of all the horses that played Silver and doubled for him, go here
http://www.ranger.riverviewparkdsm.com/silver.htm
Tonto is a fictional character, the Native American companion of The Lone Ranger, a popular American Western character created by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker.
Tonto made his first appearance on the twelfth episode of the radio show (which aired on station WXYZ on February 25, 1933). Though he became well-known as the Lone Ranger's friend, Tonto was originally created just so the Lone Ranger would have someone with whom to talk.[3] Throughout the radio run (which spanned 21 years), with only a few exceptions, Tonto was played by English actor John Todd.[4]
The character was portrayed on television (arguably the most well-remembered version today) by Jay Silverheels. This was by far the highest-rated television program on the ABC network in the early 1950s and its first true "hit".[5]
Two conflicting origin stories have been given for the character Tonto, and how he came to work with the Lone Ranger.
As originally presented, in the December 7, 1938, radio broadcast, Reid had already been well-established as the Lone Ranger when he met Tonto. In that episode, Cactus Pete, a friend of the Lone Ranger, tells the story of how the masked man and Tonto first met. According to that tale, Tonto had been caught in the explosion when two men dynamited a gold mine they were working. One of the men wanted to kill the wounded Tonto, but the Lone Ranger arrived on the scene and made him administer first aid. The miner subsequently decided to keep Tonto around, intending to make him the fall guy when he would later murder his partner. The Lone Ranger foiled both the attempted murder and the attempted framing of Tonto. No reason was given in the episode as to why Tonto chose to travel with the Lone Ranger, rather than continue about his business.
A different version was given in both later episodes of the radio drama and at the beginning of the Lone Ranger television series. Tonto rescues a man named Reid, the sole surviving Texas Ranger of a party who was tricked into an ambush by the outlaw Butch Cavendish (although later reference works referred to the future Lone Ranger as "John" Reid, no first name was ever given to the Lone Ranger in either the radio or TV series). Tonto recognizes the ranger as someone who had saved him when they were both boys. He refers to him by the title "ke-mo sah-bee", explaining that the phrase means "faithful scout" in the language of his tribe. Tonto helps Reid give a decent burial to the other rangers.[6]
This Native American was portrayed as an intelligent character, almost an equal partner to the Ranger in his work. Together, they seem to be capable of righting almost any wrong within the half-hour time frame.
The radio series identified Tonto as a chief's son in the Potawatomi nation. His name translates as wild one in his own language. For the most part, the Potawatomi did not live in the Southwestern states, and their cultural costume is different from that worn by Tonto. The choice to make Tonto a Potawatomi seems to come from station owner George Trendle's youth in Michigan. This is the traditional territory of the Potawatomi, and many local institutions use Potawatomi names. Tonto's name, according to an NPR news story on the Lone Ranger, was inspired by the name of Tonto Basin, Arizona.[3]
Tonto first rode a Paint Horse named "Big Fellow"(also Big Fellah, or Big Feller); later this horse was exchanged for a Pinto named "Scout".[7]
The portrayal of Tonto has been seen by some Native Americans and others as degrading, despite his heroism, notably by Native American author and poet Sherman Alexie.[8] Tonto spoke in a pidgin, saying things like, "That right, Kemo Sabe," or "Him say man ride over ridge on horse."
In 1975, poet and science fiction writer Paul O. Williams coined the term "tontoism" to refer to the practice of writing haiku with missing articles ("the", "a", or "an"), which he claimed made such haiku sound like Tonto's stunted English.
Further, in Portuguese, Italian and Spanish, the word tonto means "fool" or "dumb", so the name was changed in the dubbed versions. In some Spanish speaking countries, he was named Toro ("bull"); in other cases, the name was changed to "Ponto".
Later adaptations of the character such as The Legend of the Lone Ranger and the Filmation animated series depict him as being perfectly articulate in English and speaking it carefully.
Television actor Silverheels was not above making a little fun of the character himself, as in a classic Tonight Show sketch with Johnny Carson, with Carson playing a career counselor and Silverheels playing Tonto looking for a new job after working "thirty lousy years" as the Lone Ranger's faithful sidekick. When asked why he was looking for a new job, Tonto replies, "Him finally find out what Kemo Sabe means!"
John Todd (1877 – July 14, 1957), born Fred McCarthy was an American radio actor.
A former stage actor known for Shakespearean roles, Todd soon gained work at Detroit radio station WXYZ, as part of director James Jewell's repertory company, with roles on the various series produced by the station.
His most famous work was on The Lone Ranger. He played a local sheriff in some of the show's earliest episodes, but on the twelfth broadcast, which aired February 25, 1933, Todd first played his most famous role, the masked man's Native American companion Tonto.[1]
In reality a bald, stocky man of Irish descent in late middle age, Todd occasionally donned a wig for publicity photos, but was usually replaced by a Native American performer for public appearances.
With the exception of a brief period where he was replaced by a real Native American, Todd played Tonto for almost the entire radio run, and was the only original cast member heard on the final broadcast, on September 3, 1954.
Station owner George Trendle wanted to replace Todd in the role of Tonto, because he was "too old". Todd's replacement, a college educated native American refused to perform the "Me do" and "Him go" type lines as written and Todd was given back the role of Tonto.
Trendle had a reputation for keeping his performers working for low pay even when the show was a big money maker. This episode may have been another of Trendle's maneuvers to demonstrate that the actors could be replaced.
Other radio roles included recurring but less significant parts on The Green Hornet as Dan Reid, the title character's father and the now elderly version of The Lone Ranger's nephew, and on Challenge of the Yukon, as Inspector Conrad, Sgt. Preston's superior in the North-West Mounted Police.
since we're reimagining the West, is anyone else looking forward to "Cowboys and & Aliens"?
@MontereyJack,
Waiting with bated breath............
If this thread was about cowboys and aliens, I might show a spark of interest. Sadly, it is just concerned with the Lone Ranger and Tonto.
@edgarblythe,
Here in Oz we are currently undergoing a changeover to high definition digital transmission on free-to-air television. The change has been phased over a few years until it is fully up and running and the analog transmission ceases. New stations have started up and we are a little spoiled for choice (although 3-4 hours of
Friends each day is about 180-240 minutes more than I can bear!). However, while it lasts I won't complain - I'm an insomniac of sorts and the tv is a good companion during the long pre-dawn hours.
The point of all that is to say that we are being treated to a couple of decent westerns - Wagon Train and The Virginian - and I am enjoying them immensely.
Sorry if I am digressing from the Lone Ranger and Tonto; just letting my second childhood take over for a while.
You mention Jeff Chandler as an Indian. I think the worst was Chuck Connors as Geronimo.
@ragnel,
We went digital at least a year or two ago. There are good things about it, but if you use an air antenna, the picture generally needs constant adjusting. I love old time westerns, of mediocre quality to good.
I read this thread last night.
I tried to remember who the hell played Cochise?
I got up to pee about 4AM and my brain said "Sinsara".
I knew that wasn't right.
Michael Ansara
Joe(He was a Syrian.)Nation
@Joe Nation,
Ah, and this one - Broken Arrow, with Jeff Chandler (aka Ira Grossel):
http://www.landofcochise.com/movies13.html
Remembering my first date.. when I was twelve.
We took the bus to downtown Evanston, Illinois. By the time we exited the bus, I finished all the questions I had stored up to ask in conversation. We didn't talk the rest of the date, except when at my front door, I said something like "thank you, I had a very nice time."
Luckily, the rest of my life didn't go quite like that.
The movie was "Taza, Son of Cochise", starring Rock Hudson.
@Joe Nation,
True enough, Joe. But several other actors also portrayed him.
