Western Wednesdays: Daniel Boone (1936)

 

     Daniel Boone was released on October 16th, 1936. Directed by David Howard and written by Daniel Jarrett and Edgecumb Pincho, it stars George O'Brien as the titular legendary frontiersman and is a loose retelling of the founding of Boonesborough.

 

     The film follows the actual history very loosely, instead  following the basic formula of wagon train pictures like The Covered Wagon and The Big Trail. All three films of these films feature a love triangle, with the fair maiden being wooed away from a smooth talking con-man by the rugged, no-nonsense lead. Like The Big Trail, Daniel Boone also features a second rivalry, between the lead and an uncouth renegade, which ends with a brutal bit of frontier justice. Director David Howard does the best he can with the derivative script, keeping the film moving at a good pace and he does a particularly good job with the action scenes.  The cinematography by Frank Good is also top notch. 

 

     This was the first picture O'Brien did after moving from Fox to RKO. He's good as Boone, bringing a real dynamism and heroic character to the role. A young John Carradine takes on the role of the heavy, Simon Girty, a white renegade who stirs the Indians up to attack the settlers. Carradine brings his usual menace to the role and Girty has to be one of the nastiest villian the actor ever played. Heather Angel (Cora from The Last of the Mohicans) plays the love interest, Virginia Randolph, and has good chemistry with O'Brien (Boone's wife Rebecca is conspicuously absent). Ralph Forbes' Stephen Marlowe provides Boone with a romantic rival and a remarkably despicable one at that while George Regas' Black Eagle functions as his trusty sidekick. I have to wonder if Regas' character was an inspiration for Ed Ames Mingo in the Fess Parker series. Finally Dickie Jones and Huntley Gordon play Virginia's brother and father respectively, and both are killed, tragically, in the last act. 

 

     Daniel Boone is unusually dark for a B-western. Aside from the aforementioned deaths (one of a 9 year old boy no less!) the films ending is really rather somber. Having held off the attacks of the Indians, stirred up by Girty, the people of Boonesborough are forced to leave their hard-won new home when the corrupt government officials force them out on a technicality, ceding the land to the unscrupulous Marlowe. Nonetheless, the film ends with Boone and Randolph cheerfully leading the settlers toward a new settlement, forging a new frontier with unfettered optimism.

 

Score: 7/10