LEGENDARY HEROES #24

KING OF THE ROYAL MOUNTED

"King of the Royal Mounted" was a comic strip based on a short story by Zane Grey.  Grey (1872-1939) was one of the best known writers of western literature at the time.  "Riders of the Purple Sage" was his bestselling book of the 90 novels that he wrote.  His total book sales have surpassed 40 million copies and have been reprinted numerous times.  From 1917-1926 Grey was in the top ten bestseller list nine times.  When paperback books began reprinting his novels sales exploded.  He was such a prolific writer that after his death in 1939 his publisher, Harper & Row, had so many manuscripts stockpiled that they were able to publish a new title every year until 1963.  His books and stories were made into 112 movies and a TV series - "Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater".  And in 1935 Zane Grey was entering the comic business.

While Grey's story was the inspiration, it was up to Romer Grey (Zane's son) and Stephen Slesinger to do the adaptation.  Allen Dean was the original artist.  The strip debuted as a Sunday page on February 17, 1935, and was listed in many newspapers as "Zane Grey's King of the Royal Mounted", or Grey was given the byline of the strip after the title.  A daily strip was added on March 2, 1936 at which point Charles Flanders took over the Sunday illustrating duties.  And Flanders took over the daily strip in April 1938 when Allen Dean departed.  Then in 1939 Gaylord DuBois took over the scripting and Jim Gary did the art, a collaboration that lasted until the strip ended on February 14, 1954.  The comic strip was pretty simple - Dave King, a Canadian Mountie, went after wrong-doers across the wild expanses of the country, and he always got his man.  Over the course of the strip King was promoted from Corporal to Sergeant.  The newspaper strips were reprinted in Big Little Books (5 total) beginning in 1936 and ending in 1942.  In 1937 King was the star of the first issue of Feature Book comic books, and was published in King Comics from 1936-1949.  King appeared in Dell's Famous Feature Stories and in 1940 in Red Ryder comic books.  Reprint stories also appeared in Dell's popular Four Color Comics 1948-1952 before getting it's own title and original stories from June 1952 to March 1958.

In 1936 20th Century Fox released a feature film of the comic strip starring Robert Kent as King.  Then in 1940 Republic Pictures produced a 12-chapter serial starring Allan "Rocky" Lane, the cowboy movie star.  The story was contemporary with the RCMP fighting Nazi spies in Canada.  The opening credit stated "Although the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are few in number, they successfully guard a vast dominion of the British Empire.  From the United States border to the Arctic ice pack and from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the red coat of the Mountie is the symbol of law and order and a promise that justice will prevail."  The serial was budgeted at $136,686 and went over budget by a little more than a thousand dollars - still, it was the cheapest serial produced by Republic that year.  It was filmed June 18 to July 12, 1940 and released in September of that year.  The whole serial was shot at Big Bear Lake in California because there were lots of pine trees to make it look like Canada.  The total running time of the serial was 211 minutes, and remarkably the studio would edit it into a 68 minute feature film that was released in April 1942 as "The Yukon Patrol".  "Rocky" Lane returned in the role in 1942 for another 12-chapter Republic serial, this one titled "King of the Mounties".  The storyline for this one had King fighting Japanese spies and saboteurs.  Budgeted at $136,320 the film went a whopping $3102 over budget and yet again was the cheapest serial made by Republic that year.  It was filmed June 23 to July 17, 1942 with an October release.  Parts of the serial were considered lost but a restoration was done by an organization called Serial Squadron with added sounds and subtitles in places where the soundtrack no longer existed.

For it's time period "King of the Royal Mounted" was immensely popular and when people thought of Mounties they thought of King, the brainchild of Zane Grey.  But there was one question that remained unanswered - Why do Mounties wear a lanyard around their neck attached to their sidearm?  It was a means of retaining the pistol while on horseback in rough country to make sure the firearm didn't fall out of it's holster and become lost in the brush.  The bottom of the pistol had a swivel attachment that the lanyard connected to that facilitated the quick and easy usage of the weapon.  As for a Mountie losing a pistol due to a faulty holster, this was a real concern.  According to some veteran Mounties (and they would know) the oldstyle holsters consisted of a leather flap with a slot cut into it that slipped over a stud.  Over time the slot in the flap would become worn and enlarged and this would make it much easier for the weapon to become dislodged.  And that is why Mounties wear a lanyard attached to their sidearms.