When I watch a movie like Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier (1955), my brain goes in many directions.  For example, why was this released before Davy Crockett and the River Pirates (1956)?  The answer has to be greater than it was just the collected episodes of the television show about the legendary American frontiersman (Fess Parker) that happened to be strung together for this particular movie.  I genuinely do not have an answer to this question.  I also wondered about the standard Disney cultural warning at the beginning.  Its declaration of various insensitivities contained within what you are about to watch stuck with me as it unfolded.  I have seen worse representations, though this is not meant to excuse the general barbarity with which native peoples are portrayed.  The tone is at once complex and simplistic.  There is more going on than your average 1950s Hollywood Native American savagery, while at the same time you have that same group of people barely being able to speak and behaving like animals.  As you read this review, you will see these themes on display.

As already mentioned, Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier is episodic, and there are three distinct periods portrayed.  There is no real dramatic structure to all this, with Davy gaining insights about himself through personal struggle, unless there is something I missed.  Fess Parker was a pretty wooden actor.  At any rate, we start with Davy the soldier, accompanied as always by his best friend George “Georgie” Russell (Buddy Ebsen).  They are serving in the American Army during what is referred to as the Creek Indian Wars.  If you know your American History, you will understand that this is a small part of the War of 1812.  No matter what you call the conflict, Davy and Georgie are with General Andrew Jackson (Basil Ruysdael) as volunteer militia and scouts.  Their task, made more difficult by the meddling Major Tobias Norton (William Bakewell), is to find the Creek leader Red Stick (Pat Hogan).  While Davy and Georgie are able to do so, they have to save Major Norton and his men a number of times, including one incident when Major Norton’s troops let Red Stick escape.  It takes Davy challenging and beating Red Stick in one-on-one combat to get the Creek to finally agree to cease hostilities.  With end of the war, Davy is able to return to his wife Polly (Helene Stanley) and his two young boys.  He spends one winter at home before heading out west once more, this time to hopefully find a new piece of land on which to settle his family for good.  This is the second phase of the film.  He finds the right spot, only to learn that there is essentially a bully in the area causing trouble, including for the local Cherokee with whom Davy is friendly.  The new villain is Bigfoot Mason (Mike Mazurki), who believes he is a better shot than the famous Davy Crockett.  So emboldened is Bigfoot that he begins running Cherokee off their land, prompting Davy to once more settle the matter with his fists.  With this business settled, it is now time to bring Polly and the kids out to their new territory.  Before this can take place, Davy gets news that Polly died due to a fever, and his sister-in-law has taken over care of the boys.  I would say Davy is devastated, but it is hard to guess Fess Parker’s emotions.  In any case, he is now free to take up political office, another position thrust upon him by his new neighbors.  He spends some time in the state legislature of Tennessee before he is visited by Major Norton.  Davy’s former commanding officer now represents General Jackson in Old Hickory’s bid to become president.  Davy running for United States Congress would be seen as a major boost to his fellow Tennessean’s campaign, and once more Davy agrees to do so.  What quickly becomes apparent, though should not have been surprising given his usual disregard for authority, is that Davy is not going to entirely be Jackson’s man.  Indeed, the King of the Wild Frontier is sent out of Washington during a key vote on what is referred to as the “Indian Bill.”  Again, if you remember your history lessons, you will know that this is our government deciding on removing native peoples from east of the Mississippi.  I give Disney credit for having a whisper of historical accuracy here, though they show Davy angrily leaving the capital before the measure is passed.  We now enter the final phase, which is a little bit like watching Titanic (1997), again if you have knowledge of the events you are watching in Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier.  What I am referring to is Davy and Georgie heading for Texas, picking up two more companions on their way to their date with destiny inside that famous mission then just outside of San Antonio (now well within the city limits), the Alamo.  Despite Georgie’s misgivings about the situation, Davy is determined to stick around and fight because . . . um, reasons?  There is some of his trademark, homespun logic for why they do this, something about freedom and whatnot.  Anyway, as you probably already know, he dies attempting to push back the hordes of Mexican soldiers overrunning their makeshift fort.  That is the presumption, anyway.  Disney just pans up to the flag of Texas Independence as Davy wildly swings his rifle.

Watching Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier is akin to reading a fourth-grade history paper from the 1990s about the mythical American hero.  A child of that age is probably more apt to take legend as fact, and this partially explains some of what you see in the film.  At the same time, while the portrayal of native peoples is sadly mired in the stereotypes of the day in which it was filmed, I think some credit is due for showing Davy to be an ally of native peoples that he was in real life.  In fact and fiction, Davy Crockett seems to have been a person of principles.  The movie underscores this by having him talk about his moral compass.  He describes it by saying that when he is sure he is right, he goes ahead and does something.  I have to confess to being inspired by these words as a practicing Catholic.  I have talked a lot in recent reviews about discernment.  It is not an exact science where you spend a proscribed amount of time praying about a decision, and then you will have the God given answer.  However long it takes, God will eventually definitively put the right course of action on your heart.  It is at this point that many Catholics and Christians hesitate, doubting, for whatever reason, God’s plan.  There is some wisdom to be taken from the simplicity of Davy’s approach to such matters.

Now that I have seen both of Disney’s films about the larger-than-life American character, I still would not entirely recommend Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier.  What surprises me in watching it and thinking about the real-life person on which it is based is that there has not been a modern film adaptation about the man, at least not from a major studio.  There does appear to be one in the works called Savage Lands, but dash if I can tell much about it.