Since I've only been using the free access to Disney+ to watch Star Wars, and have run out of movies that don't involve George Lucas, I thought I'd look at some of their old classic movies and see how they hold up.

I saw "Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier" a few times when I was a kid (we didn't have a TV, my parents got a VCR & monitor to exercise control over what we saw, which ended up being most of the Disney & giant monster sections of our local video store). I heard that Disney put out some sort of disclaimer about the dated content and old fashioned racial attitudes of the older movies, so I figured something like this would be a prime candidate, given that "redskin" is treated like a formal demonym. Interestingly, the only content advisory Disney+ gives is "Tobacco depictions".

-- Also, Jed Clampett plays Crockett's sidekick. Okay, he's also Barnaby Jones, which I saw more of with my grandfther than Beverly Hillbillies, but he's a lot more like the former character.

-- Regarding Indians, there's a lot of historical inaccuracies here, such as Andrew Jackson wearing the insignia of a Major General when I'm pretty sure he was a colonel and promoted to flag rank as a reward for defeating the Creeks. Also, there's an enemy leader called "Red Stick", when that was the term used for the Indian combatants. "Red Stick" is easily identified by the buffalo headdress he wears. As a native of Georgia or some other southeastern states. I also saw one Indian with a stylized sun painted on his body, in the shape of a circle, with horizontal & vertical lines representing rays, that I'm fairly certain is a southwestern design. According to IMDB, the chief of the Creeks is a real Indian, but the guy who accompanies Crockett and Jed Clampett to the Alamo is clearly an Italian.

-- Sex scenes looked weird in kids' movies in the 1950s.

-- They aren't super clear what Crockett's job is in his early life. He's first depicted as an army scout, but he makes it clear this has only been a temporary thing, for a limited duration. He goes back home from the war to hunt for a bunch of meat to keep his family fed until the end of the war, hangs out with his family after the war, and then goes looking for more land in the spring. Like, he has a farm (I think, he doesn't farm that we see), and his search for new land is attributed to restlessness. So why does he want a whole new piece of land he isn't really interested in farming? And he even gets invested in the community to the degree that he takes a law enforcement job.

-- Stuntwork has come a long way in sixty some years. When Crockett fights an alligator, there's lots of nature-documentary-type footage of the gator sneaking up on him, then there's shot of the gator's back above the water, right behind him, then the shots of Crocket shooting and the gator thrashing, but not in the frame together. There's something similar in fist-fights, where the punch is swung with the fist flying out of frame, and then a guy reeling back with blood on his face. Or when a guy is knocked backwards through a rail fence, you can see him trying to back up with tiny steps without giving away that he's walking instead of being thrown, right into a stack of rails so the whole thing gives way.

-- The theme song for Davy Crockett is pretty famous, and they kind of use it as a framing device, or to break up the acts of the movie. Which is all well and good until one such act ends with the death of his wife, and then as he walks sadly off into the twilight... the theme song comes up with lyrics about losing his love, and the tempo barely slowed down. That jaunty tune announces that he's the king of the wild frontier, that the Indians are terrorizing the countryside, that Crockett is happy spending time with the family, that he's bored with his family and wants to explore, that he's sad about his wife dying, that's he's getting elected to office... Yeah, that same bit of music suits all those different ideas and life choices.

-- I saw "The Alamo" a dozen years or so ago, with Billy Bob Thornton playing Crockett, whose main arc dealt with the issue of Crockett's largely fictional and sensationalized reputation and that he plays up to the legend as part of his populist political image. That movie, for adults, had Crockett explicitly tell another character this, in a way that seemed to suggest he was more show than substance and in control of the legend, unable to act idenpendently in his own interests, despite leaving office behind. This movie, for children, set sixty years ago and made by Disney, conveys that same issue with more subtlty, showing more and telling less, and in a more positive way, with Crockett actually leaning into the legend, as the best way to make an impression and accomplish his agenda. And then, Jackson & his political henchman keep trying to treat Crockett like he did, in fact, just wander in from the wilderness, trying to lecture him about image politics, and it's pretty clear that Crockett and not-Clampett are more sophisticated. And considering the target audience, his final speech in the House isn't a half bad lecture on legislative responsibility and how corporate interests subvert elected officials into enriching themselves. And I remember watching all of this stuff when I was a kid. Maybe treating them (and adults) like morons isn't the best way to tell stories.

-- Another understated thing is the character arc of a con man or swindler character, who's on the run from the law, and he follows Crockett and Clampett to Texas, saying he wants to follow a good example for once in his life and has pciked on this celebrity for his role model. He's just sort of comic relief on the trip to the Alamo, and during the siege, for instance, he scams one of the other defenders out of his rations, only to have one of his companions catch on to trick and scam him in turn. But when it comes time to cross the line in the sand, despite Travis giving him a clear out, he swallows his fear and walks across. It's just a nice kind of redemption story in the background, and he's last seen fighting along side Crockett, Travis, Clampett and the Italian-Indian. Not super competently, and he even flinches when it looks like he's going to get bayonetted, but he's still serving the gun when he gets shot.

-- And after Crockett makes a speech that westerward expansion can't come at the expense of people with different skin colors and different customs, he decides to go help the American settlers who aren't welcome in Mexican lands... so close, Davy.

-- I can't see them making this movie today. I can't see a movie that ends with the named characters getting shot or stabbed to death, one by one, by an endless horde of enemy soldiers, with Jed Clampett struggling up from two gun shot wounds to touch off a cannon that clearly isn't going to do any good, just up the bodycount. A guy on a sick bed, waiting with a pair of pistols to shoot the guys breaking down his door and then hack them with a bowie knife while getting bayonetted in his bed. Then the hero, alone, swinging his rifle like club until a final shot of the flag getting shot...

and cut to a jaunty, up-tempo tune asserting that even though "they were all cut low" they will still live on while we remember their fight. And then the words March 6, 1836 -- Liberty and Independence forever! over the Lone Star Texas flag.

I really don't want to be the one to tell them about 1865.

-- THEY HAVE WILLOW! I forgot that was Lucasfilm!