Clayton Moore | Through the Shattered Lens

Brock Masters (Mark Roberts) has been awarded a contract to supply the army with horses. Corrupt businessman Grat Hanlon (Clayton Moore) wants that contract for himself so he sends his henchmen to kill Brock. Because Brock has no known relatives, Grat believes that both the horses and the contract will soon be his.

However, Brock does have an heir! He adopted an Indian child named Johnny (Louis Lettieri). Johnny inherits the contract and both the Durango Kid (Charles Starrett) and Smiley Burnett are going to make sure that Johnny is able to deliver the horses. Smiley is also going to find some time to sing some songs that have even less to do with the story than usual.

Cyclone Fury was one of the later entries in the Durango Kid series. By the time it was made, Colombia was no longer willing to spend much money on the series so that majority of the film’s action scenes are lifted from other Durango Kid movies. If you’ve never seen another Durango Kid movie, the action scenes are exciting and feature some impressive stunts. If you have seen another Durango Kid movie, this one is going to seem really familiar.

For western fans, the main appeal here will be seeing Clayton Moore playing a bad guy. Moore had already played The Lone Ranger when he appeared in this movie. At the time Cyclone Fury was made, Moore had been unceremoniously fired from his most famous role and The Lone Ranger was being played by John Hart. Hart would only last a season and Moore would subsequently be invited back to play the role that defined his career. As for Cyclone Fury, Moore is convincing as Grat, though the character himself is just a typical Durango Kid bad guy. The Durango Kid was always going up against seemingly respectable businessmen who were actually outlaws.

One final note: Moore’s Lone Ranger co-star, Jay Silverheels, appears in this film but only in archival footage from an early adventure of The Durango Kid.

Long before he found fame playing Deputy Hawk on Twin Peaks, Michael Horse made his film debut in one of the most notorious box office flops of all time, The Legend of the Lone Ranger.

Michael Horse played Tonto, the young Comanche who rescues his childhood friend, John Reid (Klinton Spilsbury), and nurses him back to health after Reid has been attacked and left for dead by the notorious outlaw, Butch Cavendish (Christopher Lloyd). Reid was a civilian, accompanying a group of Texas Rangers led by his older brother, Dan (John Bennett Perry). When Cavendish attacked, John was the only survivor. John wants to avenge his brother’s death but first, Tonto is going to have to teach him how to shoot a six-shooter and how to ride his new horse, Silver. Finally, John is ready to don the mask and becomes the Lone Ranger. It’s just in time, because Cavendish has kidnapped President Grant (Jason Robards).

An even bigger flop than the more recent Lone Ranger film starring Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp, The Legend of the Lone Ranger failed for several reasons. For one thing, the film has a major identity crisis. The violence is not for kids but most of the dialogue and the performances are. For another thing, it takes forever for John Reid to actually put on the mask and become the Lone Ranger. By the time the William Tell Overture is heard, the movie is nearly over.

It was made to capitalize on the same type of nostalgia that previously made Superman a hit and, just as Superman introduced the world to Christopher Reeve, The Legend of the Lone Ranger introduced the world to a football player turned actor, named Klinton Spilsbury. Unfortunately, the world did not want to meet Klinton Spilsbury, whose blank-faced performance was so bad that James Keach was brought in to dub over all of his dialogue. Spilsbury did not help himself by reportedly acting like a diva during the shooting, demanding constant rewrites, and getting into bar brawls offset. Of the two actors who made their screen debuts in The Legend of the Lone Ranger, Michael Horse has worked again. Klinton Spilsbury has not.

When The Legend of the Lone Ranger went into production, the film’s producers made the incredibly boneheaded move of getting a court injunction barring Clayton Moore (who had played the role on TV) from wearing his Lone Ranger uniform is public. Since the semi-retired Moore was living off of the money that he made appearing as the Lone Ranger at country fairs and children’s hospitals, this move was a public relations disaster. (For his part, Moore filed a counter suit and continued to make appearances, now wearing wrap-around sunglasses instead of his mask.) Moore refused to appear in a cameo and spent much of 1981 speaking out against the film.

Finally, the main reason that Legend of The Lone Ranger flopped was because it opened on the same Friday as a little film called Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The rest is history.