One of Walt Disney's most successful "true" live-action productions is 1955's Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier. Starring Fess Parker as the legendary Tennessee backwoodsman, the film became something of a national phenomenon soon after release. Every self-respecting schoolboy was wearing Crockett's trademark coonskin cap, and the film's title song, "The Ballad of Davy Crockett", reached #1 on the Billboard weekly singles chart.
The film follows Crockett's never-ending adventures from fighting Indians (or "Injuns") alongside future-President "Old Hickory" Andrew Jackson, to tracking and hunting bear in his native Tennessee, to his election to the U.S. Congress and finally to his demise fighting alongside Jim Bowie at the Battle of the Alamo, Davy Crockett is an edge-of-the-seat thrill-a-minute delight.
Fess Parker is perfectly cast as the slow-talking, quick-acting Crockett, and his supporting cast is superb, with familiar faces such as Buddy Ebsen, Hans Conried and Kenneth Tobey in prominent roles.
