Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier *** (1955, Fess Parker, Buddy Ebsen, Basil Ruysdael) – Classic Movie Review 6485

How many ears has Davy Crockett? Three. Two at the side and a wild frontier!

Director Norman Foster’s 1955 Western is the first of two Walt Disney cinema features successfully stitched together for cinema audiences from three episodes of Fess Parker’s popular TV series (1954-1956) in Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color. To get folks out of their homes, Disney advertised it as ‘NOW…on the MOTION PICTURE SCREEN!’ but it was the same small-screen stuff.

This wholesome children’s outdoor Western adventure is easily the better of the two Disney cinema features and it is still entertaining in its simple, straightforward clean-cut way, with jolly, rough-hewn performances from Parker as the real-life early 19th-century Indian scout frontiersman Crockett and Buddy Ebsen as his ever-faithful buddy George Russel.

It will not surprise you to learn that there are three separate episodes, in which (1) Crockett and Russel fight in the Creek Indian War, (2) Crockett is elected to Congress, and (3) Crockett and Russel join the last stand at the Alamo.

Walt Disney himself picked Parker after seeing him in a walk-on role as Alan Crotty in Them! (1954), preferring him over James Arness, who became the star of one of the longest-running shows in US television history, Gunsmoke (1955). It brought Parker, his coonskin cap and the #1 hit theme song The Ballad of Davy Crockett (music by George Bruns, lyrics by Tom Blackburn) into worldwide fame.

Also in the cast are Basil Ruysdael as President Andrew Jackson, Kenneth Tobey as Colonel Jim Bowie, Nick Cravat, Pat Hogan, Helene Stanley, Mike Mazurki, William Bakewell, Hans Conried, Jeff Thompson, Don Megowan and Henry Joyner.

It is written by Tom Blackburn, shot by Charles P Boyle, produced by Bill Walsh and scored by George Bruns.

Davy Crockett and the River Pirates (1956) followed.

Fess Parker (1924–2010).

Buddy Ebsen (1908–2003).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6485

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

Fess Parker became an instant celebrity when Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier debuted in 1955.