tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-460474552118769771.post1494049002952841293..comments2024-02-28T09:34:58.074-08:00Comments on NATURALISTIC! UNCANNY! MARVELOUS!: THE LONE RANGER AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD (1958)Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-460474552118769771.post-35935016522465906802013-08-15T14:35:33.296-07:002013-08-15T14:35:33.296-07:00Thanks, John. I think you're right; it seems ...Thanks, John. I think you're right; it seems to me that I too was always seeing TV-takes on the Lost Dutchman. Mythically one might say that for westerners it took the place of conquistador legends like El Dorado. One of these days I want to review MACKENNA'S GOLD, which gets a really weird vibe out of the quest-for-lost-gold story.Gene Phillipshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-460474552118769771.post-28327128092121270122013-08-15T01:59:37.833-07:002013-08-15T01:59:37.833-07:00I saw this in the theater as a very young child (a...I saw this in the theater as a very young child (accompanied by my sister) and loved it. A few weeks ago it was shown in some obscure movie channel and I caught the last half, thoroughly enjoyed it. Tonto's finding of rhe Lost City was exactly as I remember it from fifty plus years ago.<br /><br />One thing that occurred to me afterward, and it took a while (I watch a lot of old TV shows and movies) is a possible connection (and I know this is a stretch) between the movie's lost city and the western legend of the fabled Lost Dutchman mine, so famous that nearly evert TV western series of the 50s featured at least one episode loosely based on it, nearly always under another name. Sometimes it turned out okay in the episode, in some cases it was a curse; and occasionally it was a kind of mirage, an illusion, a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow sort of thing.<br /><br />Given your mythology (anthropolofical?) orientation, I'm curious if you have any thoughts on this. As I went over the topic in my mind the John Huston Treasure Of the Sierra Madre came to mind as a kind of more modern, naturalistic version of same, albeit on a more modest scale and with no "legend", just a bunch of Americans digging for gold, with tragic consequences. That the story was set in Mexico does not "disqualify" it, as I've done a little research and there are "Lost Dutchman mine" legends that went south of the border, into Mexico, thus there could be a connection.<br /><br />BTW, in Sierra Madre, as in the Lone Ranger picture, the land (and in the latter's case the gold) ultimately belongs to the humble natives/Indians, essentially reverts to them in the end.<br /><br />Sincerely, John (aka on the CHFB as Telegonus)john kenrickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00710666533854296630noreply@blogger.com