Lee Powell-5

Lee Powell-5, originally uploaded by bucklesw1. THE LONE RANGER was released on February 12, 1938 and was a box office hit. Unfortunately, George W. Trendle only allowed Republic to distribute the serial for a certain length of time. After that, all negatives and prints were destroyed. Long believed to be a “lost” film, poor quality prints with Spanish subtitles surfaced in South America in the 1970s. Then, just last year, an outfit called Serial Squadron prepared a “restored” version pieced together from various prints that had somehow escaped destruction. A DVD-version of this restored version can now be purchased on-line.