John Hart
Birth : 1917-12-13, Los Angeles, California, USA
Death : 2009-09-20
History
John Lewis Hart, also credited as John Hilton was an American film and television actor. In his early career, Hart appeared mostly in Westerns. Although Hart played mostly minor roles in some fairly well known films, he was probably best known for having replaced Clayton Moore in 1952 in the television series, The Lone Ranger for one season from 1952 until 1953.
Hart began his screen career in 1937 with a bit part in Daughter of Shanghai. He continued in a variety of B pictures such as Prison Farm and King of Alcatraz before appearing in two of Cecil B. DeMille's films The Buccaneer and North West Mounted Police. In 1941, Hart's acting career was interrupted when he was drafted into the United States Army. He rose to the rank of first sergeant in the Coast Artillery and eventually served in the Philippines. Following his military service, Hart worked frequently for Sam Katzman; he was given the lead role in the Jack Armstrong film serial. Hart did stunt work and acted in numerous Westerns
Hart was eventually offered the opportunity to replace Clayton Moore on The Lone Ranger television series. Based on the assumption that the masked character, rather than the actor, was the true star of The Lone Ranger, the program's producers fired Moore (presumably over salary differences) and replaced him with Hart, who was of a similar build and had a comparable background in Westerns. However, the public never truly accepted Hart as the Lone Ranger, and by 1954 the producers returned Moore to the role. According to Clayton Moore's autobiography I Was That Masked Man, Moore never knew why he was replaced by Hart, and also stated that he had not sought a pay increase. Hart acted in minor roles in two episodes of The Lone Ranger before being asked to replace Clayton Moore for the entire third season. The episodes were "Rifles and Renegades" (#34) and "Sheriff at Gunstock" (#46).
Hart continued to act in films for more than two decades, appearing in films of several genres, almost always in supporting roles. Hart appeared twice in on the TV series I Love Lucy as Lucy's old boyfriend and again in the Hollywood episodes as a lifeguard at the hotel pool. In 1955, Hart starred in The Adventures of Captain Africa, which was originally intended to be a new movie about famous comic book hero The Phantom. However, licensing issues forced Columbia Pictures re-film the entire serial and re-christen the hero "Captain Africa." Hart also had numerous supporting roles in the Highway Patrol TV series. In 1965 Hart made two brief appearances on the TV series Perry Mason, including the role of title character and murder victim Jamison Selff in "The Case of the Wrathful Wraith." In the 1970 film The Phynx, Hart played the Lone Ranger alongside Jay Silverheels as Tonto, spoofing their characters. Hart's last theatrical film appearance was in 1981's The Legend of the Lone Ranger in which he appeared as a newspaper editor. He appeared in the television series Happy Days as the Lone Ranger in the episode "Hi Yo, Fonzie Away". In this episode Fonzie, played by Henry Winkler, meets his childhood hero, the Lone Ranger, for his birthday. Hart's other major late appearance was in an episode of The Greatest American Hero, My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys, where Hart gives the title character an inspiring speech about heroism.
Himself (archive footage)
A documentary following the civil rights movement and how the media, in particular the burgeoning TV, was used to fight for equality in the 1960s. From Selma to Charlottesville, we also see how modern activists use today's technology to continue fighting injustice today.
Himself
Filmmaker Phillip Dye's documentary explores the many biblical adaptations Hollywood has produced throughout the years, including The Ten Commandments, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Ben Hur, The Bible ... In the Beginning and many more titles. With iconic clips, behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the likes of Charlton Heston, Peter Ustinov and Virginia Mayo, Dye's film is a celebration of the golden age of epic moviemaking.
Lucas Striker
When the young Texas Ranger, John Reid, is the sole survivor of an ambush arranged by the militaristic outlaw leader, Butch Cavendich, he is rescued by an old childhood Comanche friend, Tonto. When he recovers from his wounds, he dedicates his life to fighting the evil that Cavendich represents. To this end, John Reid becomes the great masked western hero, The Lone Ranger. With the help of Tonto, the pair go to rescue President Grant when Cavendich takes him hostage.
Justice of the Peace
Inspired by O. Henry's short story about a young bride and groom, each of whom foolishly--but quite lovingly--sacrifices a treasured possession to buy the perfect Christmas gift for their mate.
Jake Terry
A turn-of-the-century investigator named Kate Bliss goes to the wide-open spaces of the wild west to capture a gang of outlaws led by a charming "Robin Hood of the plains," leading a band of dispossessed ranchers against a stuffy English land baron who has cheated them out of their property.
Harbormaster
Demonstrating that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, a convicted strangler studies the paranormal and finds a way to render himself invisible. Once he escapes, he sets out to find and eliminate five women who remind him of the mother he murdered. A police lieutenant (Robert Foxworth) sets out to safeguard them and bring the invisible killer to justice.
Jules
What is meant to be a pleasure cruise becomes a nightmare as murder follows murder on a small ship. With tension mounting, passengers and the crew turn on each other in a desperate attempt to identify the killer.
Bob
A hopeful young actress is lured to Hollywood by the seduction of fame and fortune. A friend she lives with while in Hollywood becomes her lover, and they both soon come to realize that the seedy Hollywood lifestyle is not for them.
Klein Salesman
A retired cop goes up against a slick jewel thief and his gang, who have pulled a diamond heist and are trying to smuggle the diamonds cross-country.
Sheriff
Police try to halt a psychotic killer's (Andrew Prine) rampage against women who posed nude in men's magazines.
Doctor
A hippie girl wandering on a California beach is taken in by a Korean War veteran who lives in a nearby mansion with his sister. The girl soon begins to suspect that the mansion is home to some very strange goings-on.
Dr. Stein
Eddie is a Vietnam veteran who loses his arms and legs when he steps on a land mine, but a brilliant surgeon is able to attach new limbs. Unfortunately an insanely jealous assistant (who has fallen in love with Eddie's fiance) switches Eddie's DNA injections, transforming him into a gigantic killer.
Sheriff Sam
Looking to spend a swinging summer at Lake Arrowhead, Carla, Beth, Brea, Heather, and Heather's cousin Paula head to the picturesque hills for a little R&R... but a pall soon casts over the girls' sunny vacation when a mysterious murderer begins picking off the lake's bevy of beauties. Can the killer be stopped before the coeds' summer fun ends in blood-spattered chaos?
Sheriff with Sunglasses
Sisters Myra and Ellie have finally had enough of their miserable, dead-end lives. When their stepfather Charley (the titular "Bonnie" being long dead) tried to rape Myra, Ellie ventilates him with a shotgun, and the pair run off to their wealthy uncle's mansion in El Paso. From that point on, the two undergo a transformation in their personalities, and start to enjoy living their lives on the wild side.
The Lone Ranger
A rock band is invented by the government as a cover to find hostages in a remote castle in Albania held by communist enemies of the USA.
Pritchard
A police captain is caught between businesses operating on the Los Angeles Sunset Strip who don't like the punks hanging out, and his belief in allowing the kids their rights. But when his daughter gets involved with an unruly bunch, his attitude starts to change.
Dr. Philip Crane
A young wife's marriage begins to crumble after she's attacked by a knife-wielding woman whom the police believed was already dead.
Dr. Gilliat (uncredited)
Marnie is a thief, a liar, and a cheat. When her new boss, Mark Rutland, catches on to her routine kleptomania, she finds herself being blackmailed.
Casino Patron (uncredited)
Lucky Jackson arrives in town with his car literally in tow ready for the first Las Vegas Grand Prix - once he has the money to buy an engine. He gets the cash easily enough but mislays it when the pretty swimming pool manageress takes his mind off things. It seems he will lose both race and girl, problems made more difficult by rivalry from Elmo Mancini, fellow racer and womaniser.
Commentator
"Mondo Inferno"- This shockumentary takes us on visits to a restaurant that serves up delicious dog meat dishes, mud-wrestling clubs, a chastity belt store. We get to see bizarre funeral rites, snake charmers, bloodsuckers and a hidden-camera expose into the local baby selling and slave markets!
Nat 'Hawkeye' Cutler
A feature made out of two episodes from the 1958 TV series "Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans."
State Trooper (uncredited)
Although he's only seven, Eddie's got it all figured out. He wants his father, a widower, to get remarried — to the girl next door. Unfortunately, she's not one of the women that his dad's been dating.
Billings / Stage Manager / Milkman (voice)
In this animated musical version of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", Ebenezer Scrooge - via Mr. Magoo's starring performance in a stage production of the classic - doesn't have a ghost of a chance unless he learns the true meaning of Christmas from the three spirits who haunt him one Christmas Eve.
Nobleman (uncredited)
A Greek Fisherman brings an Atlantean Princess back to her homeland which is the mythical city of Atlantis. He is enslaved for his trouble. The King is being manipulated by an evil sorcerer who is bent on using a natural resource of Atlantis to take over the world. The Atlanteans, or rather the slaves of Atlantis, are forced to mine a crystalline material which absorbs the suns rays. These crystals can then be used for warmth. The misuse of science has created weapons out of the crystals that can fire a heat ray to destroy whatever it touches.
Cop (uncredited)
A disillusioned writer explores the subterranean depths of San Francisco's North Beach district.
Dave Barker - Avery Gunman (uncredited)
Case Britton, gunslinger and wanted man, comes to town to meet his bride-to-be, stop a stagecoach robbery, and get even with the man who killed his brother.
Blond Gunman at Office Door
A prostitute sets out to frame a cop.
Policeman
A 17-year-old high-school senior marries a 20-something law student who works as a waiter. Who said marriage was bliss?
Andy Bates (uncredited)
A paroled convict tries to start life anew by moving with his family to a ranch, where his young son finds a puppy that is half wolf and half dog.
Nat 'Hawkeye' Cutler
Two episodes of the 1957 TV series "Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans" edited together and released as a feature.
?
After killing Billy the Kid, Sheriff Pat Garrett is relentlessly dogged by members of the Kid's gang.
Captain Africa
Filled from front to back with stock footage taken from the Columbia serials "The Phantom-1943" and, primarily, "The Desert Hawk-1944", with John Hart and the always-dull Rick Vallin making less-than-adequate substitutes for Tom Tyler and Gilbert Roland, this Sam Katzman "production" finds the mighty jungle avenger and legendary Captain Africa - A "Phantom" rip-off that side-stepped the need to pay King Features another fee for using the character - pledging to see that the legitimate Arabian caliph, Hamid, is restored to the throne which a tyrannical rival has usurped. He is joined in this enterprise by adventurer Ted Arnold, wild-animal trapper Nat Coleman, and his assistant Omar and, to cover all bases
Uniformed Deputy (uncredited)
The first of the five films where Bill Elliott played a detective lieutenant in the L.A Sheriff's department, Dial Red "O" (the correct title with the number 0 (zero), as on a telephone dial, shown in ") opens with war-torn veteran Ralph Wyatt getting word that his wife is divorcing him, and he flees the psychiatric ward of the veteran's hospital, wanting to talk to her. His escape touches off an all-out manhunt, led by Lieutenant Andy Flynn of the sheriff's department.
Sergei
Framed in flashback, The Man Who Loved Redheads is an anecdotal comedy about a man (John Justin) whose life is defined by his first romantic experience. That liaison occurred in Justin's youth, when the young man matures and enters the diplomatic world, he spends the rest of his career searching for his first love.
Mate Jenkins
Two British officers are assigned to collect information to convict Captain Kidd of piracy.
Captain of the Guards (uncredited)
In a 16th century kingdom in the Netherlands, the newly crowned King Stephan concludes a secret treaty with the Spanish. This puts him at odds with his younger brother, Prince Roland, who favors a treaty with the French. Stephan orders Roland imprisoned but Roland escapes and leads a revolt.
British Sergeant
Pathfinder, a white man raised by the Mohican Indians, joins forces with the British army to avenge himself on the Mingo warriors and the French, who have brought death and pillage to his people. He takes on a mission to retrieve secret plans from within the French fort at St. Vicente.
Stuart
Francis Barclay, a former member of the British Admiralty, who was captured in the early 1700s, and sold into slavery, by Andrew McAllister, and forced into piracy, enlists the aid of Dick Lindsay, to help him invade MacAllister's fortified island. The latter falls in love with MacAllister's daughter,Christine.
U.S. Marshal Matt Furness
Wild Bill Elliott goes after his brother's murderer!
Frederick Kingsley
Whip Wilson has to stop bandits who are trying to take over a stage line.
Moresby
A double-crossing cowboy and his gang of henchmen steal cattle, even from friends, in this classic Western.
Sgt. Plennert
John Vickers has spent eight years hunting for the three men who murdered the woman he loved. He finds one, Woodson, and kills him in a gunfight, but not before learning that the other two men have joined the U.S. Cavalry.
Slim Cole
Jim Bannon and his partner own a stagecoach line. With the coming of the telegraph and the end of the Pony Express, two men plot to take over and get the new mail contract. When Jim's partner is murdered and Jim's name is written in the sand beside the body, Jim is arrested. At his trial Whip brings surprising evidence that clears Jim and the two plotters are soon arrested.
U.S. Border Patroman
Accountant Augustis King discovers that his wife, Marfhe, is having an affair with his boss Sam Bellows. He telephones Internal Revenue Bureau that he can give evidence of a large tax-evasion racket. Before IRS-agent Steve Daniels arrives, King is murdered by a henchman of Bellows and his partner, Ernie Medford. Daniels discovers that Bellows and Medford are smuggling gold bullion from their mine in Mexico, and sell and bank the money under assumed names. they hide the bullion in a compartment welded to the bottom of a car.
Executive No. 4
When jobless genius Beauregard Bottomley interviews with Burnbridge Waters for a position at Waters' soap company, the owner rudely turns Bottomley down. As revenge, Bottomley enters a TV quiz show that Waters' company sponsors, with the goal of winning until he bankrupts the businessman. When Bottomley keeps acing the questions, becoming a media sensation, Waters desperately calls on vixen Flame O'Neal to uncover Bottomley's area of weakness.
Mark Palmer
Red Ryder KO's a fight racket with sidekick Little Beaver (Little Brown Jug) and a new friend.
Faro Savage
Red Ryder gets a telegram from his old friend Dan O'Connor asking for help in his fight against Faro Savage and his gang of rustlers. A gun dropped by Faro during a rustling raid makes Red and Sheila O'Connor, Dan's daughter, think they have ample proof against Faro but they are stymied by the law. Buckskin Blodgett and the Duchess, Red's aunt, find the body of O'Connor who was killed when Faro's men sent the sheriff out on a ruse. Sheila, discovered while rifling Faros office for evidence, escapes but not before she is recognized. Faro kills one of his own henchmen and then frames Sheila for the murder. Red and Little Beaver set out to clear Sheila and to try to find evidence against Faro and his gang. Written by Les Adams
Pedro
Joe heads for South America to fight the Latin champ. Shipboard, he helps federal agents fight counterfeiters. He also spars with love interest Anne Howe.
Army Sergeant George Malone
Joe is scheduled for the big fight as usual. This one has more fight sequences than plot.
Dent
Brick Bradford, soldier-of-fortune and time-machine traveler, is hired to protect the Interceptor Ray, an anti-guided missile weapon. His task takes him to the Moon, where he is captured by subjects of Queen Khana, but is spared because Queen Khana kinda likes him. Back on earth, Brick, Sandy and June get into The Time To (Brick's spinning time-machine) and spin back to the 18th Century where they have to fight off pirates and island natives.
Jack Armstrong
Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, battles the evil Dr. Grood, who has placed a death ray aboard his spaceship orbiting Earth.
Big Jim
Miss Hinklefink invites the Teen Agers to stay at her new ranch for the summer. Freddie is mistaken for a famed bank-robber and hijinx ensue.
Constable Norman
Texas Ranger Dusty Rivers ("Isn't that a contradiction in terms?", another character asks him) travels to Canada in the 1880s in search of Jacques Corbeau, who is wanted for murder. He wanders into the midst of the Riel Rebellion, in which Métis (people of French and Native heritage) and Natives want a separate nation. Dusty falls for nurse April Logan, who is also loved by Mountie Jim Brett. April's brother is involved with Courbeau's daughter Louvette, which leads to trouble during the battles between the rebels and the Mounties. Through it all Dusty is determined to bring Corbeau back to Texas (and April, too, if he can manage it.)
Buck (uncredited)
A couple inherits a college and to generate revenue offers a thousand dollars to players for each touchdown they score.
First Reporter
The Bar Association disbars attorney Tyler Cradon when it appears he was implicated in the murder of a prominent vice crusader. Cradon, not wishing to be without an income,is impressed by the way Joan Carroll handled a small-town murder, poses as a real estate agent and offers to get her into a law firm of a friend of his. Placed in the office of Roberts, running a front for Cradon, Joan is taught every trick of the trade. With her cases all prepared for her, she goes from one courtroom victory to another, soon becoming the darling of the underworld and the despair of all law-enforcing authorities.
Davis
G-Man Charles Bent Martin is sent out to break up a nationwide racket. A transport company is aiding fugitives making a getaway in exchange for the lion's share of their loot. Through an old friend, whom he once barnstormed in an air circus, Martin joins the gang as a pilot. He becomes interested in Carol Butler, a beautiful girl involved with the gang through the activities of her ne'er-do-well father.
1st Radio Operator
A convict who has just escaped from Alcatraz Prison takes over a passenger ship. Two of the ship's crew hatch a plot to overpower him and rescue the ship's passengers.
'Texas' Jack
Shirley Ross plays an innocent young girl convicted for complicity in a crime committed by her boy friend (Lloyd Nolan). The male crook is sentence to six months on a prison farm populated by both men and women (segregated, of course). Ross is also incarcerated, suffering the cruelties of the sadistic male and female guards (including J. Carroll Naish and future "Ma Kettle" Marjorie Main!)
