Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier is a 1955 live-action Walt Disney adventure film starring Fess Parker as Davy Crockett. This film is an edited compilation of the first three stories from the Davy Crockett Disney television series:[1]
Plot
Creek Indian Wars
Tennessee wilderness settlers, Davy Crockett and best friend George "Georgie" Russel volunteer to fight with General Andrew Jackson in the Creek Indian War. After a victorious battle, Crockett and Russel return home over the protestations of their superiors. Returning the next season, the pair find that the pursuing American forces have reached a stalemate chasing the remnant Creek forces through the swamps.
Georgie Russel is ambushed while scouting for the Indian positions, but Crockett is able to track the Indians back to camp. In exchange for Russel's life, Crockett challenges Red Stick, the Creek's remaining chief, to a tomahawk duel. Crockett emerges victorious but spares the life of Red Stick on condition he will sign the American peace treaty.
Frontier Pioneer
Crockett and Russel leave home once again to the scout virgin territory being opened for settlement. There the pair encounter a man named Big Foot who is running Indians off their land and reselling it. After befriending a family of Indian refugees who have been forced from their homes, Crockett agrees to become magistrate for the area. Confronting Big Foot in hand to hand combat, Crockett eventually defeats his opponent and arrests him and his accomplices.
Not long after, Crockett receives a letter from his sister-in-law which relates that Polly, his wife, has died.
Off to Congress
Crockett agrees to run for congress when he learns of the unrivaled candidacy of Amos Thorpe, an unscrupulous politician in league with men trying to lay claim to Indian lands. Handily elected, Crockett becomes a popular member of the Tennessee legislature and of Andrew Jackson who has since become governor of the state.
Aware of Crockett's views of Indian's rights, Jackson's underlings arrange for Crockett to take a speaking tour across Tennessee during the introduction of a legislative bill to usurp Indian treaty lands. Hearing of the bill, Georgie Russel rides across the state to fetch Crockett. The pair arrive back in Nashville where Crockett makes an impassioned speech before the legislature against the bill, aware that it will cost him his political career.
The Alamo
Crockett learns of the embattled Texans at the Alamo and decides to join them, with Georgie Russel reluctantly following. En route to San Antonio the pair are joined by a riverboat gambler named Thimblerig, and an Indian brave Davy and Georgie nickname "Busted Luck", who was forced from his tribe. After reaching the Alamo, the army successfully holds out against General Santa Anna until being finally overrun by Mexican troops. Georgie is killed, but our last shot of Davy is of him fighting valiantly against overwhelming odds. (We know he will be killed eventually, but we are told his legend will live on.)
Response
Released as a result of the enormous success of the three television episodes, which were first shown on the Disney anthology television series, the film remains, Walt Disney's most successful television film project. The Davy Crockett episodes of the early-to-mid 1950's had sparked a national "Davy Crockett craze", with many coonskin caps being sold, as well as a successful recording of the episodes' theme song "The Ballad of Davy Crockett".
The success of the film prompted Disney to create Davy Crockett and the River Pirates.
Actor Fess Parker became so identified with the role that in 1964 he starred in a successful television series about Daniel Boone, another American frontiersman.
Cast
References
- ^ Dave Smith. Disney A to Z. Disney Editions, 2006. 161.
See also
External links
