GREATEST HEROES OF THE BIBLE: VOLUME 3 -- GOD'S POWER. YOUR EASTER SUNDAY VIEWING IS HERE, AND IT'S...GOOD ENOUGH!

Forgive them, Father, for they know not this is Schick Sunn Classic entertainment.

By Paul Mavis

Last week I had a nice response to the second volume review of Schick Sunn Classic’s and NBC’s Greatest Heroes of the Bible, the miniseries? series? special events? that aired sporadically during the 1978-1979 season ("nice response" equals a solitary email from an Episcopalian choir director in Omaha who said she’d pray for me, and then wished I’d rot in hell). 

Lets look at the third and final volume of these specials released by CBS DVD and Paramount:  Greatest Heroes of the Bible: Volume Three – God’s Power. Episodes included here are: The Tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, Jacob’s Challenge, and Joseph in Egypt. At this point in the review, if you’re not familiar with the legendary Schick Sunn Classic Pictures indie, I strongly urge you to increase my “unique readers” hits and go back and look at the first volume review. That will give me a chance to shower, shave and throw up, so we can get back to the review.

Good now? You’re versed in the power and the glory that is Schick Sunn Classics? I would hope so. A few years back, no less a prestigious DVD releasing company than Kino Lorber released a Blu-ray of SSC’s conspiracy crapfest, The Lincoln Conspiracy, a celestial event worthy of hosannas and palm fronds from SSC fans everywhere. 

Perhaps―just perhaps―the tide is turning, and whatever legal blockades or marketing reluctance are lifting, and rabid consumers of all things Schick Sunn Classics will see a golden day when the entire canon is available on home video, and the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken, and we shall all offer the strength, hope, and peace of Christ our Lord in this difficult yet sacred time of home video releasing.

So…how about the episodes of this volume of Greatest Heroes of the Bible? How are they? Well…with the exception of some, um…humorous casting decisions…these four mildly diverting episodes aren’t quite what I want from a true Schick Sunn Classic production. Yes, the dialogue is sometimes amusingly overripe and florid.  Yes, the sets are still incredibly chintzy. And yes, a few of the performances lack any discernible talent. Fine. Good.

But you can get generalized incompetence anywhere in Hollywood. I want that magic Schick Sunn Classic ineptitude―which overwhelmed the first disc, Greatest Heroes of the Bible: Volume One – Bible’s Greatest Stories―the kind where all the elements of production come together to form a product that’s at once less than its parts…and then oh so much more, as it delights us with its cheap earnestness, wholesome, all-American huckstering, and almost complete incompetence. Have you seen In Search of Noah’s Ark? How about The Mysterious Monsters? In Search of Historic Jesus?

Well, if you haven’t, then you need to, because they feature the kind of indie moviemaking I treasure from my youth: cheap, coarse, calculated, ridiculously over-hyped, wildly maladroit…and marvelously entertaining. Unfortunately, the four episodes here in Greatest Heroes of the Bible: Volume Three – God’s Power have their Sunn Classic moments, but overall―they’re often just too average to pass the true Sunn Classic “P.U.” sniff test.

In the Beginning…there was The Tower of Babel. Arnold Horshack (Ron Palilo) and little Joannie “Shortcake” Cunningham (Erin Moran) are in love―a blessed event in TV pop culture that will eventually lead to the virgin birth of Punky Brewster (as prescribed by Scripture). But that’s later in the New Testament. Right now, the obstacle to their love comes in the form of the huge monstrosity that renowned hunter Amathar (Dr. Ben Casey) is building right next to the KMart.

Believing that man literally needs to get closer to God, he wants a tower―a biiiiiiiiiiiiig tower―built. Horshack will design it, and Joannie’s dad, Ranol (Dana Elcar), will make the bricks…and make a handsome, tidy profit off them, too. Horshack’s traditionalist father, Admiral Nelson of the Seaview (Richard Basehart), the spiritual leader of the tribe, is naturally against this idolatry, but what’s he to do when everyone else backs this shovel-ready project? 

Soon, the whole tribe is involved in the tower construction (the last time it took a village…), at first willingly, and then at the point of a sword when power inevitably goes to Amathar’s head, as the all-important, all-encompassing State―with a despot at its controls―now dictates life and death to the frightened, cowed people (wait…is this prophecy?).

As delicious as are the possibilities inherent in that, um…eclectic cast drawing sparks, not much of interest happens in The Tower of Babel. No one is egregiously awful, nor particularly good, in their performances, with the halfway-decent tower set being the only element that stands out. It’s certainly not like the vertiginous one in Huston’s The Bible…in the Beginning, but it’s okay for the budget. 

More careful scripting might have given us some insight into why Amathar “turned,” but alas, there’s no time for it amid the repeated scenes of various cast members whispering about the tower, and how to bring it down. Respectable but unimpressive, and worse for SSC, kinda dull.

Okay, now we’re more on my territory: Sodom and Gomorrah. This should be good, right? Mingo/Lot (Ed Ames), recognizing that’s it’s time to split tribes with Amos Burke/Abraham (Gene Barry) because there’s not enough grass growing to go around. Leaving for Jordan, he’s welcomed by King Bera (Peter Mark Richman). Bera knows a sucker when he sees one: if Lot and the Hebrews flourish on his land, he’ll get their money in taxes, and if they fail…they’ll make good slaves.

Lot seems fairly sanguine about being so close to the worst vice pits on earth, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, but his wife Constance MacKenzie/Nagar (Dorothy Malone) ain’t complaining. Eventually, all the Jews are corrupted by the naughty pleasures of S & G, even Lot, whose ego is seduced by Bera when the King makes Lot a stooge judge. God finally flips, and decides S & G have got to go.

In the second volume of Greatest Heroes of the Bible, I wrote how much I enjoyed hearing the dialogue from resonant actors Ed Ames and Gene Barry, when they enacted Abraham’s Sacrifice. They still sound good here, but you’re going to search in vain to see any of the “good parts” of Sodom and Gomorrah, if you know what I mean. 

In other words, this is all far, far too tame to adequately get across the evil degradation that is supposed to be embodied in the original “Fun City” I and II (when we’re admitted to the licentious lair of King Bera’s palace, his full-blown orgy consists of…two slightly swaying girls and a juggler. I had that at my seventh birthday party).

I know it’s TV, and TV from 1979, but still: you have to show us something to convey the absolute moral decay of S & G; otherwise, how can we see Lot overcome it? When we’re told the Jews have all finally succumbed to sin, as proof we’re given a shot of a guy strapped to a post, with two other guys jingling some jingle-jangles in his face. That’s “sin?” No, that’s a party game at the local Rotary.

Scripter Brian Russell and director Jack Hively keep things straight for the most part, but it’s hard to credit them with the episode’s best bit of business―the destruction of S & G―when most of it obviously comes from stock footage from some other movie (I can’t tell if it’s from Aldrich’s big-screen version, or some other Italian peplum). Acting ranges from excellent (the always reliable Peter Mark Richman as silky, smooth Bera) to quite sad (a visibly reduced, at loose ends Dorothy Malone). A seeming sure-fire outing that’s too good to be enjoyably junky, and not nearly funky enough to be enjoyably bad.

The land of Canaan, where the Hebrews and Hittites have formed an uneasy truce. In Jacob’s Challenge, Greg Brady (Barry Williams) is the twin brother of Eric “Otter” Stratton (Peter Fox), of Delta House. Greg’s the deep thinker, and Otter’s the big stinker, since he appeared first in this world, thereby gaining the birthright of his father, Douglas “Isaac” Channing (Stephen Elliott), of nearby Falcon Crest. 

Prophecy has foretold, however, that one day the older Otter will worship the younger Greg, but Greg can’t see how that’s going to happen, even with the assurance of his mother, Ruth Martin (June Lockhart). Greg resorts to tricks to gain Otter’s birthright, and comes awful close to scoring with his fiance, Julie Rogers (Tanya Roberts), too. Will God finally warm to Greg, and rename him Johnny Bravo Israel?

First off: finally some honest-to-God cleavage in the Greatest Heroes of the Bible, thanks in no small (ahem) part to sexy no-talent, Tanya Roberts. Written by the reliable TV scribe Norman Lessing, Jacob’s Challenge is straightforward enough in its storytelling, but direction by Jack Hively, unfortunately, misses the mark here, with a distinctly desultory tone dampening the proceedings (it really looks “TV,” with a constant, undistinguished procession of full and head shots). Certainly the most amusing aspect of Jacob’s Challenge is all those B and C-lister television stars, including “fake Tim Matheson” and a Farah Fawcett/Cheryl Ladd/Shelley Hack substitute (there’s even an appropriately second-string Officer Chris Owens from The Rookies).

Unfortunately, aside from one hysterically funny encounter between Barry Williams and Tanya Roberts (Jacob speaks movingly of God’s covenant, when a grotesquely pouting Roberts, acting like some sex kitten from a Bob Hope movie, completely ignores him and jumps in without missing a beat, “It’s hot in here!” while unbuttoning her blouse―priceless), the episode is surprisingly flat, with Barry Williams’ somnambulant performance coming in for a hefty portion of the blame.

End times. In the disc’s final outing, Joseph in Egypt, Joseph (Sam Bottoms), beloved son of Jacob (Walter Brooke), is set upon by his jealous, traitorous brothers, who sell him into slavery. “Rescued” by horny rich lady Nairubi (Carol Rossen), Joseph works his way up to be a trusted servant to master Potiphar (Bernie Kopell), Nairubi’s henpecked husband. 

When Joseph rejects her advances and then cries rape, Potiphar has him sent to prison, where he eventually befriends evil warden Har-Gatep (Albert Salmi). By blind luck becoming a trusted confidant of the Pharaoh (Barry Nelson), due to Joseph’s ability to read God’s will in anyone’s dreams, Joseph now has the power to avenge himself on his treacherous brothers.

The episode that comes the closest in a few scenes to the spirit of “bad=better” Sunn Classic outings, Joseph in Egypt is an otherwise pokey outing anchored by a…what’s the word…inexplicable performance by Sam Bottoms. When he makes that verkakte stupid grin, is he playing a character with a stupid grin…or is he really stupid? You can’t tell. 

Bernie Kopell seems to be doing dinner theater comedy when first introduced, practically winking at the audience and mugging like his Doc character on The Love Boat (the laughs come later…when he plays everything straight).

Barry Nelson as Pharaoh (yep, you just read that) plays his wise Egyptian dictator the way he played all his roles: like a slightly aggrieved accounts manager at a large Midwestern insurance company. Much, much better is the always funny Carol Rossen, who camps it up something awful as Nairubi, who, when she sees the slaves out in the desert for the first time, spits out, “Tell them to keep it down, I won’t have them shouting in my face with their bad breath!” I doubt “keep it down” was in the Egyptian vernacular then (or now), but she sells it.

Even better, when she tries to seduce Bottoms (???), she comes out with a full-blown picked-out hairdo borrowed from Roseanne Roseannadanna, and purrs, “He [Kopell] is a goose, and you are…rare game,” a line truly worthy of DeMille (Bottoms has a great comeback―”You are not a woman, but a wild, ugly beast! You sicken me!”―but he blows it). 

Unfortunately, the fun stops after this opening act when Bottoms goes to prison and meets Salmi (the original har-dee-har-har actor), before become an Egyptian big-shot, all of which unspools at an increasingly lugubrious pace. Pity; it seemed so close to stinking.

And Schick Sunn Classic Productions looked down upon what It had made, and saw that it was…good enough.  Alas, not good enough, though, for a renewal order from NBC.

PAUL MAVIS IS AN INTERNATIONALLY PUBLISHED MOVIE AND TELEVISION HISTORIAN, A MEMBER OF THE ONLINE FILM CRITICS SOCIETY, AND THE AUTHOR OF THE ESPIONAGE FILMOGRAPHY. Click to order.

Read more of Paul’s TV reviews here. Read Paul’s film reviews at our sister website, Movies & Drinks.

MORE GOOD LOVIN' FROM THE GOOD BOOK: GREATEST HEROES OF THE BIBLE VOL. 2 - GOD'S CHOSEN ONES

Oy gevalt what’s with this meshugganah Easter season?  Last year when I put something out specifically for Easter (the Shick Sunn Classic TV epic Greatest Heroes of the Bible: Volume One review), we were watching wars in Gaza, the Ukraine, the Sudan, Syria, and Mexico (the cartels, what else?), and I don't especially remember people here freaking out.

But now?  Now suddenly things are a problem because we get to have some fun?  Oy vey iz mir.  

By Paul Mavis

Enough with the haka’at ha-lev…what say we look at Paramount’s Volume Two release, neshomeles? If you haven’t already bookmarked it (you got a problem, maybe?), I recommend you read that Greatest Heroes of the Bible: Volume One review first, to get some background on Sunn Classic and this NBC series. I could just port sections of it over here and lard up this review, but quite frankly I just don’t have the strength. This has been an extremely trying week (I’m switching from gin to vodka for my gimlets and I’m just a frazzled heap).

Click to order Greatest Heroes of the Bible: Volume Two – God’s Chosen Ones on DVD:

So…you’ve read that first review and you’re ready for more? Saints preserve us. Okay: Greatest Heroes of the Bible: Volume Two – God’s Chosen Ones, which includes The Story of Moses, Joshua and Jericho, The Story of Esther, and Abraham’s Sacrifice. Let’s get right to it: how are they? Well…two (The Story of Moses sorta, but really Joshua and Jericho) are the kind of delicious crap I’d expect from Sunn.

For Joshua and Jericho specifically, the dialogue is oftentimes comically overstated (in that delightfully florid, declarative, faux-Biblical style from so many earlier Hollywood religious epics); the production is simultaneously outrageously ambitious and incredibly chintzy (check out the pasteboard and canvas walls of Jericho wobbling in the breeze); and the performances range from embarrassingly pretentious here (Robert Culp, who else) to, um…awful (the mesmerizingly bad Sydney Lassick…no wait: he’s cosmically dreadful).

Distressingly, the other two episodes in this volume (The Story of Esther, and Abraham’s Sacrifice) are somewhat reasonable attempts at cheap religious TV drama. And that would be fine…if it was a Sunday morning in 1975 and I was watching Insight instead of WXYZ Channel 7’s The Abbott & Costello Theater because they finally worked their way down to the dire Dance With Me, Henry. I don’t want tepid earnestness and okay performances in a Sunn Classics effort. I want completely calculated wretchedness.

First up is The Story of Moses, starring John Marley and more importantly, his gorgeous head of hair (beautifully washed, set, and combed-out, I might add), back from Volume One as the man with God’s plan, Moses. Now that God has laid down The Law, it’s time for the Chosen People to split from evil Pharaoh (Joseph Campanella). 

Pharaoh’s advisors (Robert Alda, Lloyd Bochner) sneer that the Jews are just loafing it, but apparently Moses means business: let my people go, or I swear to Jehovah that the work stoppage on those bricks will make an ILWU dock worker’s strike look like a potty break.

Of course this stiff-necked Hebrew defiance enrages Pharaoh, who increases the Jewish slaves’ work quotas…which in turn ticks off God, who decides a nice set of plagues are in order for uppity Pharaoh. So guess who wins. The minute Robert Alda and Lloyd Bochner appear, both made up in full Cover Girl glory (maybe it’s Maybelline?), and start camping around like the road company of La Cage Aux Folles, high hopes are indeed set for The Story of Moses.

Alas, their bitchy, hilarious parts are brief, and we’re stuck with the likes of brawny Joe Campanella, pulling a surprisingly credible British (?) accent as Pharaoh (he’s actually not half-bad), and Frank Gorshin unattractively, nastily grimacing and shouting like he always did in anything other than Batman (he had to know he didn’t deserve the crappy career he wound up with). 

The worst, though, is Marley, who delivers his lines in the same hoarse, uninflected, declaratory manner, regardless of the line’s import, each and every time (at my local deli I’ve heard, “I’ll have a pastrami on marble rye!” put over with more feeling than his remarkably colorless, “Let my people go.” And watch him tap-tapping his staff at Pharaoh’s door. Positively feeble (hit that thing like you mean it, Moshe!).

Seriously: you couldn’t find anyone else with hair to play Moses, other than Marley? Finally, the funniest part of The Story of Moses is not what you would expect–the parting of the Red Sea, which looks to be a $1.98 chroma key wonder–but rather…the slow realization that Marley has a chili dog stain on his tunic, and the producers had not either the time nor the extra tunic, to have him change it. Now that’s Sunn Classic!

This is more like it: Joshua and Jericho. Joshua (Robert Culp) knows that the decadent, morally corrupt city of Jericho stands between freedom for his people, and death, so it must fall. But how? God (who else) has a plan.  But Joshua’s subordinates are having a hard time believing that just marching around Jericho’s walls every day, while sounding their trumpets, will somehow bring down the city.

Meanwhile, crazy-as-a-june-bug-on-a-hot-skillet King Agadiz (Sydney Lassick) wants to either have an orgy with everyone…or have them all put to the sword, the latter a plan his general Assurabi (Cameron Mitchell) can definitely get behind. Intrigue at the court increases when former “dancing girl” Rahab (Sondra Currie, ridiculously, perfectly coiffed) decides to aid the rebels in attacking Jericho. 

Okay, so…what’s with all the lead actors affecting phony limey accents in this group of Greatest Heroes of the Bible episodes? Culp does it here, too, although not nearly as well as Campanella in the previous outing. Did someone think it would make these quickies sound more “respectable?” More “epic?”

Hard to say…but it’s hilarious, particularly when already pretentious-as-hell Culp attempts it. An actor who always had a terminal case of the “cutes,” Culp is up to his usual shenanigans, pulling out his patented array of phony pauses and hesitations and faux-meaningful glances off into space before he delivers one affected line-reading after another (even the simplest business in his hands comes off as phony–watch him sharpen that sword, childishly ignoring the other actors like he’s Brando picking at his navel: it’s a hoot).

Thank god for Cameron Mitchell and Sydney Lassick. Exploitation superstar Mitchell, sporting an iron grey hairdo (wig?) that’s a cross between Jane Wyman circa 1954 and Spock’s father on the o.g. Star Trek, gets to yell and bulge out his eyes and neck veins every few minutes, growling out gems like, “You are nothing but the biggest hog in this stinking swine-filled pigpen!” and “Come to me, Joshua! Come to death!” Thank you, God, for at least that!

Even better (on another astral plane, really) is Sydney Lassick, best known as one of the inmates from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Sissy Spacek’s douche bag English teacher in Carrie. Screwing up his face into perverted joy/rage/impotent frustration, Lassick, eyes shut tight, screams in horror to the ceiling, “Why must you always shame me!? I am the King of Jericho!” to such absolutely hysterical effect, it’s difficult to take the rest of the episode seriously, such is the imbalance (you just wish the whole episode had been about him). 

By the time a nicely-animated William Daniels calls him fat and disgusting, as Lassick squeals like a stuck pig when the cardboard walls of Jericho come down in rather unimpressive flashes of lightning, you know you’ve seen a Schick Sunn Classic production.  Labriut, Sydney Lassick, you completely rotten actor.

…and then come the “respectable” outings. Now, let’s be clear: The Story of Esther and Abraham’s Sacrifice won’t be giving Jesus of Nazareth, NBC’s massive miniseries success from the previous year, a run for its money. They’re merely…reasonably acceptable. 

But even that low bar is an accomplishment worth noting for Schick Sunn Classic Productions, so give them their due. Both were written by TV pro Norman Lessing, and directed with a more measured approach by Jack B. Hively (it’s safe to say they’re responsible for the change in tone from other entries in the series).

Fear not, though; Schick Sunn mile markers inevitably pop up. In Esther, it’s the appearance of “The Big Ragu” (!) as Uri the rebel fighter (boy is he earnest in his blandness) and none other than Pamela Sue Barnes as Queen Esther. Victoria Principal is gorgeous, of course, but her, um…stacked charms are hidden by too many robe ensembles for my liking, while that curiously neurasthenic allure she has (like permanent dental work crossed with head trauma) morphs from “erotic” to “uninteresting p.o.a.” real quick (personally I don't care if she's been on more wieners than mustard--I'm crazy about her).

And I’m sorry, but talented Robert Mandan (Soap‘s Chester) is so naturally amusing I just couldn’t take him seriously as King Xerxes, the other half of that romance of the ages (I kept expecting him to rage…and then drop to his knees, mugging and begging Principal to just understand him, in Mandan’s always amusing manner). Still…the dialogue is acceptable, and the story at least moves, while supporting work from Michael Ansara is quite good, as expected.

Abraham’s Sacrifice is even better; only the overripe presence of Lainie Kazan (!) as Hagar mars an otherwise simple, straightforward, and surprisingly involving take on this familiar story (when Kazan hears her son is fated to die, she can’t resist pulling a mug, laughably convulsing like she ate a bad clam). 

Three of the best voices in television–Gene Barry as Abraham, Andrew Duggan as King Herabol, and Ed Ames as Lot–help make the spare, to-the-point dialogue sound appropriately important, with pros Ross Martin and Beverly Garland rounding out the best cast (so far, at least) that I’ve seen for these Greatest Heroes of the Bible episodes.

Finally, some cool, stylized sets show up (Duggan’s throne room), while the location shooting in Page, Arizona, has a bit of scope to it, with a nicely-realized finale as rocks and boulders crush Duggan’s forces, the movie switching to an effective monochrome during God’s wrathful storm. 

It’s a lean, simple, nicely executed episode. I just wish it had been a little more awful. Still…any Sunn Classic lovin’ is good lovin’, as far as I’m concerned.

PAUL MAVIS IS AN INTERNATIONALLY PUBLISHED MOVIE AND TELEVISION HISTORIAN, A MEMBER OF THE ONLINE FILM CRITICS SOCIETY, AND THE AUTHOR OF THE ESPIONAGE FILMOGRAPHY. Click to order.

Read more of my TV reviews here. Read my film reviews at our sister website, Movies & Drinks.

DANIEL BOONE: 60s AND 70s ADVENTURE SERIES STILL PERFECT FAMILY FUN

 

If you noticed that I haven't posted since Christmas:  1) give yourself a star for noticing! And 2) no, I haven't abandoned it--I'm just dying.

By Paul Mavis

Funny how comforting television--old television, to be clear, from before cable--can be when you're ill.  When things are bad, it doesn't even have to be one of your favorite shows--it can be most any series from that golden age, as long as it comes from the era where writers and directors actually understood classic story construction; performers tried to service the piece, not themselves; and producers understood mainstream network television's first goal was to sell soap by entertaining its viewers.  Entertain them.  Not belittle them.  Not lecture them (that doesn't mean "no messages." Far from it).  Not attack them.

A few years back, 20th Century-Fox introduced a new releasing line called the TV Archives (pretty sure that's gone...along with 20th Century-Fox itself), inaugurating it with Daniel Boone—The Complete Series: The Fiftieth Anniversary, a 6-volume, 36-disc, 165-episode collection of the beloved 1960s NBC action/adventure series. 

Starring Fess Parker, Patricia Blair (pretty and bland), Ed Ames (lots of fun with his English colloquialisms and smirky reaction shots), Darby Hinton (all-American kid), Veronica Cartwright (excellent here…what a shame Blair got her fired), Albert Salmi (fine but superfluous once Ames took the sidekick slot), Jimmy Dean (amiable, as usual), Dallas McKennon (funny old coot), and Rosey Grier (who was going to tell him he was trying too hard?), Daniel Boone proved a sizeable hit with families and young audiences during its six season run, from 1964-1970.

Click to purchase Daniel Boone: The Complete Series on DVD:

Daniel Boone still plays quite well today, with its solid storytelling mix of agreeably idealized history (…which everyone involved in the making of series was well aware of, so save your snarky superior sneers, you supercilious shits), sprightly action, a moral to send the kids off to bed on (back when kids had bedtimes), and smooth, assured performances, particularly from its star, Fess Parker. 

With that honeyed, mellifluous Texas accent and imposing 6 foot 5 stature, Parker was the embodiment of what we like to think a classic American male is…or least what they used to be (God help us from the freaks and phonies that pass as American movie and TV stars today…). Daniel Boone, as romanticized in Daniel Boone, is an iconic American role that requires gentle strength, few words that are nonetheless delivered well and with authority, and an absolute confidence in knowing that what you’re doing, is right. Fess Parker is a natural at conveying that kind of American male—a figure in popular culture, I suspect, that is gone for good.

To my older brothers, Fess Parker would forever be Disney’s Davey Crockett, such was the impact of that baby boomer phenomenon on them. But for me (Gen X or Generation Jones, or my own preferred genus subspecies:  derelict-us bum-icus), coming along more than ten years after the fact, the image of Parker frozen in my mind is that of Daniel Boone, no doubt from countless reruns of the series when I was growing up (who the hell from my generation didn’t want to pick up that tomahawk, with “INSERT YOUR FULL NAME was a Man, Yes a Big Man!” playing in their head as they hurled it, splitting that title card log open like a chicken?).

Fess Parker’s career always intrigued me because, despite the “second phase” success of Daniel Boone, I could never quite figure out how someone as talented as Parker, who was given a truly global springboard like those five one-hour Disney Davy Crockett movies, didn’t have a more substantial career on the big and small screens. Well…after some reading, I found out that Parker spent a lot of time wondering about that very same question himself….

According to interviews with Parker, Daniel Boone was originally conceived as The Further Adventures of Davy Crockett…but ol’ Uncle Walt said, “No way.” Parker, under personal contract with Walt Disney during the Davy Crockett period in the mid-50s, could never quite understand why his boss didn’t do more with him at the studio. 

Why wouldn’t Walt loan him out for projects that could have upped Parker’s profile (and one would gather, increase the value of Disney’s “property”), such as John Ford’s The Searchers (which Disney turned down for Parker without telling him) or Josh Logan’s Bus Stop, with Marilyn Monroe (here's a hint:  prude)? 

Indeed, Walt’s first project for Parker after Crockett—a critical moment in Parker’s career, since Hollywood was looking closely to see if he wasn’t just a flash in the pan—was The Great Locomotive Chase…where lead Parker was hung as a spy at the big-screen movie’s finale (thanks, Uncle Walt, for almost killing my career almost before it started…).

From there it was all downhill, as Walt either put Parker in desultory projects, or fobbed him off in trivial roles (Westward Ho the Wagons!, a small part in Old Yeller)...or just flat-out ignored him. Fed up with the demand that he appear in a glorified cameo for Disney’s Sal Mineo Western, Tonka, Parker quit Disney, and moved over to Paramount, where he fared little better (supporting roles in second-tier movies like The Jayhawkers! and Hell is for Heroes). 

Parker, going nowhere fast on the big screen, had little choice but to return to TV in NBC’s small-screen adaptation of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, which only lasted one go-around during the 1962-1963 season. So when NBC suggested Parker return to the role that had made him an international icon—Davey Crockett—the pragmatic Parker, now with a family to feed, readily agreed.

Too bad ol’ Uncle Walt didn’t feel the same way. When NBC let Disney know they were going to remount Davy Crockett for Fess Parker (which of course they had every legal right to, since you can’t copyright the biography of a long-dead historical person), Walt—whose Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color was one of the very few NBC shows in the Nielsen Top Thirty—let the network powers-that-be know he wouldn’t be too happy with that proposed Crockett TV series getting a pilot (Parker, always the true gentleman, was nice about this, never publicly stating that he thought Walt was being vindictive to an old employee who walked out on him…but I’m saying it).

To their credit, NBC, badly in need of more hits in the face of CBS’ increasing domination of the ratings, forged ahead and proposed that Parker keep his coonskin cap on and play frontier explorer Daniel Boone instead (even though Disney had done a Boone project in 1960 with Dewey Martin, he didn’t push it by objecting to this conversion–probably because the Martin outing was a flop). 

This time, though, Parker was determined not to be a mere employee, particularly after Walt made millions off Parker’s tireless promotional efforts as a global spokesman for the entire Disney brand during the Davy Crockett craziness…while Parker was being paid a measly $350 dollars a week on his contract).

Parker owned 30% of Daniel Boone, with old Hollywood pro director/producer George Sherman (Comanche Territory, Tomahawk), producer Aaron Rosenberg (To Hell and Back, 1962’s Mutiny on the Bounty), and 20th Century-Fox as partners (according to Parker, he and Walt exchanged pleasantries during a Daniel Boone launch party…but Parker never heard from ol’ Walt ever again.  That's show biz). 

Shot in color but broadcast that first 1964-1965 season in black and white (from what I’ve read, the color masters are long gone), Daniel Boone didn’t crack the vaunted Nielsen Top Thirty that first season (the debut of 18th most-watched The Munsters over on CBS cut into Boone’s family demo…if the small fry weren’t already tuned into The Flintstones and The Donna Reed Show on ABC). But Daniel Boone often did well in its time slot, and with networks back then being far more patient in letting a show build and find an audience, Daniel Boone survived that first season to come back in its sophomore session as the 26th most-watched show on television—a sizeable hit.

Watching the six seasons of this series, what struck me almost immediately about Daniel Boone was the sense of fair-mindedness in Parker’s portrayal of frontiersman, as well as in the series’ overall even-handed viewpoint of its clash of cultures and peoples on the pre-Revolutionary War frontier. 

It’s a decidedly un-P.C. approach to the material that may well puzzle those who have grown up in today’s restrictive, locked-down politically correct culture (but it won’t be for fans of vintage TV, who know better). It’s solid, sensible entertainment, for lack of a better word, employing the classic (and perhaps now dead) American values of self-determination and self-reliance, regardless of your race or your creed or your religion.

Daniel expects nothing more from anyone—Indian, Britisher, settler—than simple respect, and the right to pursue his individual and family life according to his own views, without anyone stopping him…particularly the ruling government (good luck with that today). And if that settler or Indian or Britisher violates that basic God-given right (and this from your atheist reviewer), Daniel tells them so—fearlessly—regardless of who they are. 

Of course, there are many people today who would say that’s a ridiculous notion because we weren’t equal as a nation during this time—that it’s naive and even dangerous to believe Daniel Boone‘s open-minded “history lessons,” not just from a facts-on-file view, such as historic figures in time-lines that don’t make sense in the season’s story arcs, but also from a sociological perspective (18th century characters with 1960s politically enlightened sensibilities).

Of course the easiest answer to that kind of phony critical outrage or dismissiveness is that Daniel Boone was first entertainment, and second, “message”…and at no time was it an attempt at “real” history. I reject the elitist writers and “TV critics”—yeech—who wring their hands and bemoan those clueless masses being brainwashed into thinking “tripe” like Daniel Boone is factual and historical, and thus potentially capable of warping their sensibilities. 

TV viewers, then and now, are smarter than that (Parker hit it right on the head about the fantasy elements of Daniel Boone, stating: “Well, thankfully, the American public sees entertainment for what it is, it’s entertainment, it’s not life, so we were able to spend six years on it.”).

That’s particularly true with the dismissive criticism of the Mingo character (marvelously played by Ed Ames), with critics saying it was laughable to have an Oxford-educated Indian befriend Daniel as an unlikely sidekick. This critical carping strikes me as a far more racist viewpoint than the “evils” of the early seasons of Daniel Boone supposedly comforting early 1960s racist Americans (that viewpoint comes from one of the series’ producers, by the way), by showing Indians—as well as American settlers and British soldiers, which is conveniently forgotten—who were treacherous. 

There’s an interesting exchange between Daniel and Mingo in the first episode, Ken-Tuck-E, where Mingo talks of “God’s many children with many tongues.” He goes on to speak of his belief that “The red man kills to live; too often, the white man lives to kill.” If this were a TV show today, Boone would agree with Mingo, and offer a guilty, contrite apology. 

Not so here. Daniel replies: “Some do; others don’t.” It’s obvious they disagree, but they continue on with their friendship. You would never hear that sentiment today; it’s de rigueur that any project today dealing with this particular time period in America history would have its characters divided between absolute evil (all whites) and absolute good (everyone else).

Daniel Boone, however, is more nuanced and thoughtful than that.  Today’s TV may be more graphic or unflinching in the depiction of its dramatic themes, and thus perceived, somehow, to be more “honest” or “real” than television from Daniel Boone‘s more innocent days…but today’s TV is also almost exclusively one-sided in its perspective (and you know what side that is). 

In the second season episode, My Name is Rawls, co-starring Olympic decathlete and civil rights activist, Rafer Johnson, the then-white hot topic of race relations is tackled head-on (hardly seems like the kind of material for a “kiddie show,” as Daniel Boone was often derisively labeled).

Johnson, playing a former slave now free, is stealing other trappers’ pelts to sell to murderous white thieves, to earn his passage back to Africa. Just the notion that Johnson wants to return to Africa is novel enough for 1965 television (most episodes would have demanded that he wish to stay here as a free man), but when the producer and writers gave him these words to say, it must have been a jolt to the families watching the show: “The white man took my freedom and brought me to this country. I want my freedom back. I want to see my home again. These are my rights. I’m claiming them the only way I can.”

But of course, it’s never that simple, as Daniel points out. Setting out to track down Johnson for stealing the pelts, Daniel responds to the above by saying, “You make it sound sort of logical. The only thing is, by taking something that you say belongs to you, you’re taking something that belongs to somebody else.” 

When pressed further by Johnson, Daniel flatly states, “You might say I’m dead set against thievery.” Throughout Daniel Boone‘s run, an even-handed approach is applied to this central issue of perceived rights versus larger responsibilities—both personal and societal, with Daniel and Mingo often making a case for racial harmony facilitated by an overriding moral code based on individual responsibility.

When Daniel asks Johnson to trust him, that he doesn’t want to send him back to the slave owners, Daniel says, “A man’s what he is—regardless. I don’t think race or color has anything to do with it.” Johnson replies, “White men sold me into slavery; how could I ever be his friend?” Daniel, smiling along with Mingo, his Indian friend, responds sensibly, “Well, I don’t like all Indians for that matter. Depends on what you’re looking for,” while Mingo smilingly acknowledges this truism with a nod.

It’s this kind of honest, pragmatic, fair approach to difficult, controversial issues that’s missing from our current one-sided entertainment culture (and frankly from our culture in general, in these here United States of Mexico), and it makes Daniel Boone a minor revelation today, if you’re unfamiliar with it. 

Today, if a character uttered the words that Daniel said above, he’d immediately be labeled a racist, and the discussion would be over—a convenient way to shut down someone as “absolutely wrong” without having to hear what they’re actually saying (a nefarious practice used today by those who claim a higher moral ground…in order to silence any and all opposition). But far from being a racist, Daniel goes so far as to protect Johnson over the safety of his own daughter, while securing the funds to send Johnson back to Africa…if Johnson so chooses.

I highlighted these earlier episodes not just because they’re excellent examples of Daniel Boone‘s thoughtful context within a family-friendly action/adventure format, but also to counter producer Barney Rosenzweig’s (seasons 4 through 6) assertions—laid out to any interviewer who would listen to him—that Daniel Boone was lightweight garbage before he came along in season 4 and “introverted” the series into something meaningful. 

According to Rosenzweig’s interviews (watch his video one for the Archive of American Television to see exactly why so many people loathe the Hollywood Left), he was brought into the “troubled” production prior to the 1967-1968 season because the ratings were falling (not true). All he was instructed to do by his father-in-law—who just happened to be producer Aaron Rosenberg—was to shepherd the show through this fourth and certainly last season, so enough episodes would be ready for syndication.

And the way he did this was to take a chance and make Daniel Boone relevant by “introducing ideas and thoughts to people who hadn’t been exposed to them,” specifically: teaching those poor unformed, unrealized boobs out in TVland about Vietnam, “civil disobedience, and the plight of blacks before slavery was abolished,” to Fess’ “huge audience in the South.” 

Now…just re-read that again: Rosenzweig’s Daniel Boone reached down into the fetid, illiterate swamp known as “the deep South,” and taught those know-nothing racist crackers a thing or two about how America’s history really was—specifically, about slavery…to the South that apparently didn’t understand those ramifications over the last 100 years (I’m surprised he didn’t throw in ol’ Dan’l takin’ a bath ever now ‘n’ then so’n the viewer would knowd what a cake of lye soap wuz fer).

Such unwarranted, elitist hubris condemns itself, but something should be said about his numbers, at least. When Rosenzweig was brought into the “failing” Daniel Boone, its ratings had done nothing but climb prior to his hiring: 26th overall for its sophomore season, and 25th for its third. 

Rosenzweig’s first season as producer actually saw a four-slot drop in the Nielsen’s (29th) for the show’s fourth season, before the fifth season rebounded to 21st (against zero competition, lucky for him), with the last season well out of the Nielsen Top Thirty against monster hit, Family Affair, over on CBS. 

Maybe Parker said it best; in his Daniel Boone interview for Archive of American Television, he lists his producers by name…before referring to Rosenzweig as “the 29-year-old son-in-law,” (hahahaha--classic). 

Rosenzweig didn’t make Daniel Boone “relevant.” It already was. He may have made it more message-y, while cutting back the action (which wasn’t wise in the long run)…but it was always entertainment with a thoughtful context.

PAUL MAVIS IS AN INTERNATIONALLY PUBLISHED MOVIE AND TELEVISION HISTORIAN, A MEMBER OF THE ONLINE FILM CRITICS SOCIETY, AND THE AUTHOR OF THE ESPIONAGE FILMOGRAPHY. Click to order.

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