Daniel Boone (TV Series) A Short Walk to Salem (1964) User Reviews

A Family of Crooks

[gordonl56 · 7/10 · 28 March 2014]

DANIEL BOONE – A Short Walk to Salem – 1964

This is the eighth episode of the long running 1964-70 series about the life of American frontiersman and explorer, Daniel Boone. The lead is played by Fess Parker. Also in the mix are Albert Salmi, Ed Ames, Patricia Blair, Veronica Cartwright and Darby Hinton.

This one has James Westerfield as the father of three men who make a living stealing furs from local trappers. The three sons are played by, Robert Sorells, Charlie Briggs and Harry Dean Stanton. The family decide it is time to move up in the world and plan a huge pelt theft.

They raid the trading post at Fort Boonesborough and clean out the whole season's catch. They then high tail it for the coast to sell the goods. This is a major blow to the local economy as the furs were to buy supplies for the upcoming winter. Daniel Boone (Fess Parker) and Cherokee scout Mingo (Ed Ames) set out in pursuit. Joining them is Boone buddy, Albert Salmi.

Parker and party catch up with the lowlife bunch, but have the tables turned on them and are disarmed. They escape, but are now out gunned and at a loss as to how to retrieve their weapons, and furs. Parker comes up with a plan using various items taken from a burial site for a dead Shawnee chief. They convince Westerfield and his mob that the ghost of the dead Chief is back. This frightens the hell out of the backwoods crew, and Parker and company are soon back in control.

An OK episode that is played more for laughs than to be serious.

Girty's Gang

[militarymuseu-88399 · 6/10 · 30 October 2023]

Yadkin is waylaid and robbed of his fur cache by outlaw Simon Girty (James Westerfeld) and his several sons. He tries to sell them in Boonesborough. Dan and the townsfolk intercept them and toss the Girty brood into the river for their trouble, but they recover and make off with a larger haul. A posse of Dan, Yadkin and Mingo head off in pursuit.

Dan and co. Focus on chasing minor miscreants this week. Westerfeld, Judge Parker in 1969's "True Grit," seems more of the townsman type than an agile frontier outlaw, but oh well. One of his brood is portrayed by Harry Dean Stanton, and kudos to the show for hiring a native Kentuckian and upcoming actor who would rack up 295 acting credits by the time of his death in 2017, including a rendezvous with DB's Veronica Cartwright in 1979's "Alien."

The hour is a variation on the wandering trapper trope, one of whom would occasionally show up in Boonesborough for good or ill. Israel gets his first foray out of the fort when he accompanies Dan and Yadkin. But in an ongoing problem for the series, Darby Hinton started the role too young to portray a believable and survivable wilderness protagonist, and is too often left by the writers in the Disney cute-kid rut. Most of the action is standard backwoods brawling, and some river-rapids shooting - but clearly simulated in front of a screen projection.

The real life Simon Girty was an Ohio Valley figure of some note who could have figured in several DB episodes, but this is his solo outing. He lived with the Seneca tribe for several years, then declared for the Patriot side early in the Revolution. But by 1778 he pulled a trans-Appalachian Benedict Arnold act and joined the Anglo-Indian side, and fought directly against Boone during the Patriot defeat at the Battle of Blue Licks, Ky. In 1782. The real Israel Boone was KIA in that fight. Girty went to Canada after the peace and lived there the rest his life, but he would not escape his son in turn being killed during the War of 1812 while fighting on the British side.

A Cherokee graveyard plays into the denouement, and not for the last time we will see a skull-on-a-pole prop - absolutely no historical rationale for that. Dan will need to break into the burial site, and simply muscles aside Mingo's cultural-sensitivities argument; later in the series he will display greater savvy in tribal dealings.

Some minor action sequences, but the hour has a bit too much nighttime sequence that does not show up well in the black-and-white format, and the finale is overly contrived. A filler episode with some production values is the result.