Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier (1954)

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General		Extras
Category	Family	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1954
Running Time	89:01
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Norman Foster
Studio Distributor	Disney Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.	Starring	Fess Parker Buddy Ebsen
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$19.95	Music	George Bruns

    The American Wild West, where men were men and women were, well, women. Where men like George "Dubya" Bush shoot first and don't worry about asking questions at all....

    Oops, hang on, wrong review....

    The American Wild West, where men were men and women were... well you know that bit. Men like Davy Crockett, famed folk hero who actually was not from the West but rather from the woods of Tennessee and whose exploits have been grossly enlarged in the finest folkloric traditions such that he did just about everything, fought just about everyone and tamed the entire Wild Frontier on his own. Most of what is attributed to him is myth, but the facts are still pretty good, and yes he did actually fight at The Alamo (his connection with the Wild West), where he of course died. Such a man of course provides a rich source of stories for film and television making and so it was that the exploits of the man were turned into a television series by Walt Disney. The first three of those television episodes were cobbled together into a film for theatrical release, and this is that cobbling.

    This basically takes the form of telling the story of the adult life of Davy Crockett (Fess Parker), starting with his fighting in the Indian Wars as a volunteer under General Andrew Jackson (Basil Ruysdael). So we start with the Creek Indian War where Davy and his offsider George Russel (Buddy Ebsen) scout out the location of Red Stick, a chief of the Creek, so as the troops can move in to wipe out the Indians. Red Stick of course is not amongst them and even after a brief foray back home to his wife Polly (Helene Stanley), Davy returns to finish off the task. This he achieves by rational discourse with Red Stick and the Indian Wars are over. Peace does not quell the exploring bug that afflicts Davy though and he is soon off with George to seek his own patch of land on the Mississippi. This however does not come cheap, and eventually he finds himself elected to the State Legislature. His backwoodsman manner goes down a treat, as does his impeccable good sense and honesty. Then one day he gets a visit from his former commander, Major Tobias Norton (William Bakewell) with a suggestion - go see his old buddy General Andrew Jackson who of course is going to run for President. He suggests that Davy run for Congress, which of course he dutifully does and finds himself the respected member from Tennessee - complete with backwoodsman manner. Of course the honest Davy is way too honest for the conniving of Tobias Norton and that has repercussions. Ultimately he quits politics and heads back to the frontier - this time to Texas with the known result.

    Of course by the time The Alamo fell, Sam Houston's troops were able to take on Santa Ana's troops and won the independence of Texas. The likes of Davy Crockett who fell at The Alamo became national heroes in the process. The Alamo itself became the rallying cry of war - remember The Alamo. In other words, never forget what a small band of men can do in the face of overwhelming odds.

    Well okay the story is rather well known, so there is little here that would be unfamiliar to anyone with half an interest in American history. Naturally there is a whole glossing over of a lot of stuff in the name of entertainment, but so what? We get plenty of action and that keeps the entertainment action high, even if the stunt work is fairly ropey. The acting itself is not exactly Academy Award winning stuff either, but that is also besides the point. We are just here for the entertainment and that is what we get.

    Whilst I cannot say that the stories hold as much appeal to me as it would to an American, there is still enough here to keep the interest level up. It might not be the most obvious issue in the Walt Disney Family Collection to check out but don't overlook it completely.

Video

    Surprisingly this is now fifty years old - I do remember watching some of the episodes of the series on TV as a kid - and it does at times show it. The transfer is presented in a Full Frame format that accords with the theatrical aspect ratio. It is of course not 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is generally quite good but does show up its age all the same. Sharpness is a little variable (even before taking into account the obvious difference between the filmed footage and the stock footage used), whilst detail is quite average. Shadow detail is usually acceptable but especially towards the latter part of the programme in The Alamo it does drop quite noticeably. Contrast could have been a bit better but thankfully there is only light grain to be found throughout - so clarity is better than expected.

    The colours are reasonably good, being quite solidly handled with decent depth to the tones and quite good skin tones. Vibrancy is decent enough too, but obviously does not approach anything more recent. Oversaturation is not problem nor is colour bleed. In an ideal world, blacks would have been a little deeper.

    There were no readily apparent MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There was also very little in the way of film-to-video artefacts, with only extremely minor aliasing (or more correctly shimmer) noticeable on a couple of rare occasions. Unfortunately the source material is quite dirty and so there are plenty of white specks that shower the transfer, sometimes very noticeably. A few obvious instances of other damage crop up too, but usually these are some black marks to the edge of the transfer that really don't get too prominent.

    This disc is a single sided, single layered disc, so there is no layer change to worry about.

    There are nine subtitle options on the DVD. The English efforts are good but there are some problems in getting the dialogue right (the use of backwoods country dialogue does not help here, nor does the accent) which sometimes has you sitting there thinking "is that really what he said?".

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are two soundtracks on the DVD, both of which are Dolby Digital 2.0 efforts. The language options are English and French.

    The dialogue comes up pretty well in the transfer and is generally easy to understand. There were some slight indications of audio sync issues in the transfer, which I would suspect are inherent indications of some slightly sloppy ADR work.

    The original score comes from George Bruns. It has a real country feel to it at times, often too clichéd for its own good. It does however do a fair job of supporting the programme.

    There is not much wrong with the sound although it does suffer a little from hiss and one or two audio drop outs. Since the source material is unrestored fifty year old sound, this is hardly surprising I suppose. Mostly sounding very much as if it is mono tweaked to play out of two channels, you can be assured that there is little body to the sound and nothing in the way of surround activity. Serviceable.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    Okay, a menu does not constitute an extra, but it does give me a chance to complain vociferously about the lack of extras. Given the material on the Region 1 release in the Walt Disney Treasures limited edition series, I would have thought something could have graced this release.

Menu

    Okay, this has been released in Region 1 but as a part of the now very much sought after Walt Disney Treasures. With a limited release in a highly collectible tin, the whole series of Davy Crockett was released as one volume of the Treasures, with this programme comprising Disc One of the collection. Obviously that is by far and away the preferred way of getting the programme, but it will now cost you significant bucks to source it from Ebay or similar places. If you just want this programme however, then your choices are limited to the similar Region 2 and Region 4 releases, which would make the Region 4 the region of choice owing to a lower price. The film is to be released in Region 1 as part of a Davy Crockett double feature on 7th September, 2004, although details of that edition are not yet known, although presumably the other feature will be Davy Crockett And The River Pirates - the other film made from the television series episodes. When that release comes out however, it is likely to supplant the Region 4 as the version of choice - simply as it will have both features on the one disc.

    Davy Crockett King Of The Wild Frontier might gloss over the life of this famed American legend, but in itself is reasonable enough entertainment. Its presentation on Region 4 DVD might not be a patch upon what was once available in Region 1, but then again it comes a lot cheaper than that Region 1 release now does. If the programme is to your taste then there is little reason to not grab this at the mid-price it has been released at.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall