User Reviews

While many viewers will remember Fess Parker in the role of Daniel Boone from the long-running 1960s television series, there was a mini series of sorts on "Disneyland," one of the many incarnations of Walt Disney's weekly family-oriented programs before Parker's series started.

Daniel Boone was played by Dewey Martin in the several-part series and his main nemesis was Crowfeather, a Shawnee brave played by Dean Fredericks who, under several different names, often played native roles in the 1950s and 1960s.

Even before Boone leads his family and other settlers into Kentucky, he must confront the Indians' unwillingness to have their lands invaded, as they see it.

Chief Blackfish (Anthony Caruso) of the Shawnees arranges a contest of strength between Boone and Crowfeather. Crowfeather dislikes Boone from the start and cheats during the contest. After they shoot at a target with muskets, Blackfish hurls a tomahawk at a tree across a stream. The two men, now stripped to the waist and as eager to subvert the other as to win the contest, run for the tree. They must run through the stream and Crowfeather trips up Daniel Boone. When Crowfeather gets the tomahawk first, Boone gives as good as he got and the contest soon degenerates into a real fight.

The two men, their bodies glistening from the water, fight chest to chest and eventually Boone gets the war hatchet and maneuvers Crowfeather into the water. He appears to strike him with the hatchet but it apparently is not with the metal side. Crowfeather is defeated, humiliated, and left wallowing in the water.

Throughout the rest of the hour, Crowfeather, with an ever-dwindling number of braves, attempts to prevent Boone from bringing his group into Kentucky. The Shawnees are shot out of trees, roll down hills, and are bested in one fight after another, even one involving an inexplicably shirtless young boy.

Finally, Crowfeather's band, reduced to two braves, corners Boone and his immediate family in a cave. The ending is a rousing fight on a rocky ledge over, once again, a war hatchet, a tomahawk. Just as Crowfeather is about to kill Boone, Fredericks' character smirking in triumph and revenge, Blackfish and the rest of the tribe show up and Crowfeather is shot and falls to his death. The renegade brave has been killed by his own people for violating tribal laws.

The way is now clear for Boone to enter Kentucky.

*Spoiler/plot- 1960, Long before the West was explored to it's fullest, the frontiersman Daniel Boone had a powerful need to expand westward and to see Kentucky Territory. This was an unexplored wilderness on the westward side of the Cumberland mountains and a secret Indian hunting grounds. A traveling peddler tells Mr. Boone of a hidden way to enter that area through a secret Indian trail called the 'Warrior's Path'. So Boone sets out with the peddler and friends to find the path and runs into a Shawnee hunting parting, but finally discovers the unexplored garden-like valley for the eventual westward movement of 18th century Eastern seaboard settlers.

*Special Stars- Dewey Martin, Richard Banke, Lala Powers, Anthony Caruso

*Theme- Some people have 'itchy feet' and become explorers.

*Based on- John Bakeless book, "Daniel Boone".

*Trivia/location/goofs- The first of four TV Disney episodes turned into video releases. Others include: And 'Chase the Buffalo', 'The Wilderness Road', 'The Promised Land'. The plot was plodding and un-eventful. Northridge California local resident and honorary mayor, Anthony Caruso makes another camera appearance as a Native American tribe leader. The episode includes Walt Disney's personal on camera introduction to this show with its history and character introductions.

*Emotion- This series seems to be trying to reproduce the success of the Davey Crockett Disney TV series, but it did not. The lead actor does not have the same acting or screen presence as Fess 'Davey Crockett' Parker did. Its a somewhat forgettable film.